CHESTER — Delaware County Council, District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer, and Chester Mayor Stefan Roots announced the kickoff of the Summer 2024 Safe Streets Program. The program was created to temporarily address a critical shortage of patrol officers in the Chester Police Department by utilizing select county employees for nonpatrol duties, thereby freeing up Chester officers to perform patrol duties, adding more officers to the streets. The program is expected to continue until the end of the summer, addressing the need to prevent and respond to the increase in crime that typically occurs in summer months.
Members of the county team with the required training and credentials can apply to serve in the paid positions. All expenses incurred by the county in the program will be paid out of available grant funds from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency. During the spring, Stollsteimer convened a meeting of stakeholders, including the leadership of the county’s Park Police and Department of Emergency Services, and Chester Police Commissioner Steve Gretsky to assess the department’s staffing shortage.
Like many police departments in the county and the country, it has struggled to recruit an adequate number of officers. As a result, the department’s roster has only 65% of the number of officers that it needs. Gretsky identified two positions — the turnkey and the operations positions — which are essential to the department’s operations, but that do no.