Bicycle Safety Program

The Cabarrus County Sheriff's Office provides safety programs (bicycle Rodeos) to address the problem of bicycle accidents in the county. If available, we also distributed free helmets to child during these rodeos. Funds to purchase bicycle helmets have come from the NC Department of Transportation, State Farm Insurance, and Safe Kids Coalition.

Eddie Eagle Program

www.nrahq.org/safety/eddie/

Explorer Program

www.learning-for-life.org/exploring/lawenforcement/

Law Enforcement Exploring is a worksite-based program for young men and women who have completed the eighth grade and are 14 years of age, or are 15 years of age but have not yet reached their 21st birthday. Law Enforcement Explorer posts help youth to gain insight into a variety of programs that offer hands-on career activities. For young men and women who are interested in careers in the field of law enforcement, Exploring offers experiential learning with lots of fun-filled, hands-on activities that promote the growth and development of adolescent youth. For further information on this program contact (704) 920-3143.

My Friend the Sheriff Program

My Friend the Sheriff program is designed for younger children to make them familiar with the sheriff's office and equipment. We want our children to understand that we are here for when they need help. This program can be delivered in Spanish for the Latino community.

DWI Buster

www.fatalvision.com

The most vivid way to teach the impairing effects of alcohol and drugs is to make your participants experience what impairment feels like. Fatal Vision® is a unique tool. It provides an opportunity to help people realize in a dramatic way that impaired vision is fatal vision. These activities present a great opportunity to work in messages about how impairment affects us in everything we do and to constantly stress the potential deadly consequences of impairment. Everyday activities that are taken for granted pose a challenge when someone is impaired. We have several methods of teach from have the student wear the impairment goggles and attempt basic task to have the student manuver a golf cart through a driving course.

School Watch

The Cabarrus County School System and the Cabarrus County Sheriff's Office in collaboration to help keep our schools safer have implemented a security camera system. The Cabarrus County School system has been installing security cameras in the local schools for the last several years, but only until recently, these cameras could only be monitored within the confines of that particular school.

Starting this month, the Cabarrus County Sheriff's Office will begin testing the cameras from within the Cabarrus County 911 Center. The first school to be connected is Central Cabarrus High School. The schools system currently has cameras in all high schools, and several middle and elementary schools in Cabarrus County, and the school system and sheriff's office hope to have all cameras active by the beginning of August 2003. There was no monetary cost involved for this project for the sheriff's office, because of the use of pre-existing cameras, and equipment/networking. This camera system is also capable of providing video to a laptop in an emergency vehicle, but has not been implemented due to funding.

These cameras are placed around each school in common areas or parking lots--but not in rest rooms classrooms or locker rooms. During episodes of school violence, fire alarms, or other situations the cameras can be accessed and viewed in real-time or play recorded segments all from a single computer monitor within the 911 center.