Caddo Parish Sheriff Henry Whitehorn Sr. Caddo Parish Sheriff Henry Whitehorn Sr. speaks during an interview with The Shreveport-Bossier City Advocate at Government Plaza in Shreveport, La.
Caddo Parish Sheriff Henry Whitehorn Sr. Caddo Parish Sheriff Henry Whitehorn already had 44 years of law enforcement experience under his belt before he was sworn in on July 1. Here’s how his first 45 days as sheriff have gone and his priorities for the future.
I've had an opportunity to meet with all of the police chiefs throughout this community and this parish, and I offered our support for some of the things that they're asking for, including some additional training. As a regional training provider, we've got some training coming up with some of them next week, so we're doing our part to ensure public safety throughout the parish. Forty-four years of experience is hard to come by, especially in a leadership position where I've led the different organizations that I've been blessed to lead, and bringing that to help us here in Caddo Parish, I think, is tremendous.
I had the opportunity to network with 63 other sheriffs from all over the state and learn what they're doing. The nuances of being a sheriff are a little different from being a State Police superintendent or from being a chief of police, but some of the sheriffs have said my experience is going to help them because of its diversity. Well, we have several priorities: crime prevention is one, jail overcrowding, violent crime, etc.
In particular, when I talk about crime prevention, it is going to be key to working with our local partners, ensuring that we are doing all we can to address violent crime. Building a Community Relations and Crime Prevention Unit is going to be key because I also want to have a business liaison focus. Youth crime is a big issue, and so through our Community Relations Unit, we will be focusing on youth programs that can help keep our young folks out of jail.
One of my priorities is also developing a dashboard where the community can go to our website to see what we're doing and where we are focusing our attention. The crime statistics really develop a crime analysis in Caddo Parish so that folks can see when and where it’s occurring, and then we can tell them how we're addressing those particular issues. I mean, we show our stats, but it's just stats, you know, numbers.
What are we doing about the numbers? We're working with our criminal justice partners to come up with a solution that I think everyone can accept. We're not just letting folks out of jail. That's a court function, and so we're working with our court partners to come up with a viable solution.
I think we'll address the jail overcrowding in the one-year window. I think that the one-year window with progress that we've already made will be something that I think the deputies and this community will be proud to say we've done. The community is the biggest piece of this puzzle, and that's why I formed the Community Relations unit.
We have to have the community involved in our crime prevention efforts. We could put together all sorts of plans, but if it's not something that the community wants or drives, it's not going to work. We've got roughly 116 vacancies throughout the departments right now.
The starting salary for deputies is about $44,000 and after one year, that increases to $53,000. The state pays a $5,000 incentive for first-time law enforcement officers. We're trying to hire people.
We need staff, and in the meantime, we're also working with our employees to ensure their well-being and wellness and provide opportunities for them to grow. Anyone looking to become a deputy can apply through the Caddo Parish Sheriff’s Office ..
