Posted on: Friday, October 24, 2003

EDITORIAL
Volunteer policing can encourage vigilantism

Junked and abandoned cars undeniably contribute to blight on O'ahu. So it makes sense to allow community volunteers to help remove such eyesores.

However, we're a tad wary of a bill introduced by City Council member Mike Gabbard that would give community volunteers broader policing authority. Bill 64 would allow trained volunteers to issue parking, littering and abandoned-vehicle tickets, with fines up to $255, to free up police for more pressing calls.

Presumably, the training would ensure professionalism. But when you give civilians police powers, you always run the danger of vigilantism.

Granted, the city already runs a program in which volunteers tag vehicles illegally parked in disabled-parking spaces. Generally, they're dealing with indisputable parking violations, but that may not be the case when you give them broader responsibilities.

Let's face it, motorists can be frighteningly territorial about parking spots around their homes. Would you want your neighbor — the one who hates it when you park in front of his house — to have the power to stick a citation under your windshield wiper?

The city receives thousands of complaints about abandoned vehicles each year and finds a significant number are "unattended" rather than abandoned, or simply the result of disputes between neighbors.

Still, we recognize that volunteer policing is a trend, particularly in California. In Upland, for instance, volunteer patrol duties include traffic control, subpoena service, issuance of parking citations, home vacation checks, an abandoned vehicle abatement program and municipal code enforcement.

We'd be more comfortable here with a volunteer corps whose task it is to spot violations, abandoned cars and the like, but then leave it to the authorities to impose the actual ticket.