National Academies Press: OpenBook

K9 Units in Public Transportation: A Guide for Decision Makers (2002)

Chapter: Appendix C - Summary of Interview Findings

« Previous: Appendix B - Structured Interview Guide
Page 83
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C - Summary of Interview Findings." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2002. K9 Units in Public Transportation: A Guide for Decision Makers. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/24721.
×
Page 83
Page 84
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C - Summary of Interview Findings." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2002. K9 Units in Public Transportation: A Guide for Decision Makers. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/24721.
×
Page 84
Page 85
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C - Summary of Interview Findings." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2002. K9 Units in Public Transportation: A Guide for Decision Makers. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/24721.
×
Page 85
Page 86
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C - Summary of Interview Findings." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2002. K9 Units in Public Transportation: A Guide for Decision Makers. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/24721.
×
Page 86

Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

83 APPENDIX C: SUMMARY OF INTERVIEW FINDINGS SECTION 1: TYPE OF ORGANIZATION Six of nine organizations deployed multiple capabilities such as dual use patrol/narcotics or apprehension. Only two organizations used dual use patrol/explosive dogs. Explosive detection-only dogs were utilized in AMTRAK, MARTA, MBTA, and NFTA. With the exception of AMTRAK, these units are directly associated with and patrol local airports in order to better screen the high level of passengers going through the system. MARTA in Atlanta and CTA in Chicago both work side-by-side with local police departments. In Atlanta, MARTA officers work and train with the Atlanta Police Department. In the case of Chicago, their capabilities are practically doubled by the Chicago Police Department’s canine unit, which provides added coverage in explosive and narcotics detection. BART and SEPTA have decentralized organizations where they are located in zones around the city and act as individual units. SECTION 2: NUMBER OF TEAMS On average, K9 units have between two and four teams. Houston METRO has one narcotics team that covers a huge area of responsibility but is able to operate successfully because of strong ties with other local law enforcement agencies. At the other end of the scale, AMTRAK and CTA in Chicago have very large organizations with more than 20 teams each. AMTRAK teams cover the entire United States and are spread over all their facilities, whereas CTA employs a large contractor for 21 patrol dogs. CTA is also supported by the Chicago Police Department with an additional large number of teams. SEPTA has eight K9 teams but has 18 dogs. Some of their teams deploy two dogs, affording them additional capability and more rapid response. Careful consideration of coverage required and utilization play a very important part in deciding how many teams to deploy. If an organization plans to perform a single purpose or only cover a small area, obviously a smaller number of teams are required. Using dual purpose dogs can also be an asset multiplier in many cases, but initial costs and training requirements for dual purpose dogs may deter or prolong unit activation. SECTION 3: FUNCTIONS PERFORMED All transit organizations patrol their own assets and areas of responsibility. MARTA and NFTA not only patrol their rail assets but also work in their local airports for narcotic and explosive detection as a primary focus of their duties. These two agencies also do not perform apprehension, simply because their primary duties are in detection for either narcotics or explosives or both. Although they do not apprehend suspects, both organizations have very strong relationships with local law enforcement and as a cooperative team are able to generally cover all threats encountered. Organizations with a high number of teams (eight teams and above) have greater flexibility on the type of coverage and capability available. It should be noted, too, that they all have been

84 operating 15 to 20 years and have generally grown with their area’s demand for public protection. SECTION 4: AUTHORITY All organizations have some type of formalized agreement with their local law enforcement departments. They all exhibit good working and cooperative relationships with their colleagues. WMATA has strong ties with the Washington (DC) Metropolitan Council of Governments (WashCOG) that enable a very effective sharing of regional resources. MARTA and NFTA both coordinate with the FAA, and MBTA works with the DEA. AMTRAK and Houston METRO both have special jurisdictional agreements for their activities. SECTION 5: PROCEDURES All agencies have either a mission statement or standard operating procedures (SOPs) clarifying their duties. In some cases, these documents are contained within their law enforcement procedures. All units have documented performance standards and emphasize maintaining very high standards. All units have very clear bite policies with up-channel reviews and documentation. Some differ on how suspects must be treated when the suspect denies medical care (i.e., whether or not they can require the prisoner to go to the hospital anyway), but they all require the injury to be photographed in color and the suspect to at least sign a treatment waiver. All agencies treat the individuals first, then direct them to be booked for their alleged crime. SECTION 6: TRAINING (PLUS BASIC AND IN-SERVICE TRAINING) There were a wide variety of responses on how handlers and teams get their initial training. MARTA and NFTA teams are trained by the FAA. This is because their area of concern also includes their local airports. The larger units generally have in-house basic training, but CTA teams are all trained by their contractor. There are several instances where both in-house trainers and contractors are used for basic and in- service training, which is generally desirable for medium-sized organizations. All agencies require daily or weekly training equaling between 4 and 8 hours per week per team. All agencies strongly emphasized the need for continual training of handlers and teams at the highest levels possible because of the potentially dangerous nature of their jobs. SECTION 7: CERTIFICATIONS All agencies have some type of certification and must maintain certification generally each year. Most have an outside agency to certify their teams such as USPCA or the FAA.

85 SECTION 8: DEPLOYMENT All systems patrolled their facilities to maintain an increased presence in the community. In each case, the units emphasized the importance of public awareness and opinion. All managers interviewed mentioned the importance of not reinforcing the negative images canine patrols had, especially during the civil rights unrest and large protests in the 1960s. SECTION 9: VEHICLES Five of nine units use standard police cruisers solely or in conjunction with some type of 4X4 vehicle. The popularity of the standard cruiser stems from the fact that the vehicle is made for police work and is lower to the ground, preventing the dog from having to do a lot of jumping and possibly injuring its hips. The larger SUVs have been praised for their all-terrain capability and storage, enabling some units to carry more than one dog at a time inside two kennels. There are also other types of vehicles used such as CTA’s converted flatbed truck that carries up to eight weatherproof and wind-protected kennels. SECTION 10: ANNUAL BUDGET Many of the units’ expenses have been absorbed into their departments' total operating expenses and are not broken out specifically by unit. Generally, considerations of the cost to maintain the dog include the care and feeding and veterinary expenses. The average cost is between $1,000 and $2,500 per year per dog. Costs vary by region, type of dog, and organizational structure. They can be higher depending on how the unit funds vehicles, kennels, and the officer’s time when caring for the dog both on and off duty. SECTION 11: CHOICE OF BREED All transit agencies had strong preferences for their favorite breed(s). All units except CTA used take-home dogs. In this case the handler must bond with the dog, and it becomes a part of the handler’s family. CTA uses a large kennel facility, and handlers are assigned to a specific dog to work with exclusively. The transit systems overwhelmingly used German Shepherds, Belgian Malinois, and Labradors as the breeds of choice. Houston METRO uses a Weimaraner, and NFTA boasts of their narcotics Springer Spaniel. The latter is said to be a very good choice for narcotics detection because of its small size. NFTA uses the dog freely in and around aircraft, baggage areas, and especially around cars with a very high success rate because it can get in small spaces and can be lifted easily onto higher platforms. WMATA also plans to use English Springer Spaniels as bomb detection dogs, after they have been trained, as well as larger patrol dogs. The logic to having a smaller dog apparently works well when the unit is not required to do patrol work in a particular area.

86 The average age of the dogs was between 12 and 24 months. Most agencies cited older dogs as more receptive to training. The trade-off to obtaining older dogs is an older dog will not have as much longevity as would a younger dog. SECTION 12: WHERE DOGS WERE PURCHASED All agencies studied obtained their dogs from either the breeder or a vendor. In addition, MARTA and NFTA also obtained dogs through the FAA program. The FAA also requires the teams trained by them to be available for deployment to other areas if the need should arise. Some dogs were paid for by means of the narcotics forfeiture program. SECTION 13: DOGS' PRIOR EXPERIENCE Fifty-five percent of the interviewed transportation systems obtained pre-trained dogs and the remainder have developed in-house programs for untrained dogs procured from vendors. Those systems that use pre-trained K9s obtained from TSA’s Explosives Detection Canine Team Program expressed a high level of satisfaction with their performance. Other systems obtaining pre-trained dogs from vendors stressed the challenges of ensuring that the training program is appropriately tailored for the transportation environment and followed up with consistent in-service training and evaluation. Boston’s MBTA did indicate that their initial group of pre-trained dogs was not as effective as they had hoped. As described in Table 2, based on this unsatisfactory experience, MBTA determined that the benefits of training their own dogs and matching them with their handlers in the early stages of the process outweighed the costs of additional training.

Next: Appendix D - Adaptation of TSA Fact Sheet »
K9 Units in Public Transportation: A Guide for Decision Makers Get This Book
×
MyNAP members save 10% online.
Login or Register to save!
Download Free PDF

TRB's Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Report 86: Public Transportation Security, Volume 2: K9 Units in Public Transportation: A Guide for Decision Makers offers information on current K9 deployment practices, K9 program establishment issues, and explosives detection.

  1. ×

    Welcome to OpenBook!

    You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

    Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

    No Thanks Take a Tour »
  2. ×

    Show this book's table of contents, where you can jump to any chapter by name.

    « Back Next »
  3. ×

    ...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

    « Back Next »
  4. ×

    Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

    « Back Next »
  5. ×

    To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter.

    « Back Next »
  6. ×

    Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

    « Back Next »
  7. ×

    View our suggested citation for this chapter.

    « Back Next »
  8. ×

    Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

    « Back Next »
Stay Connected!