Contact: Police Chief Kevin Patenaude
Clayton Municipal Building
425 Mary Street
PO Box 250
Clayton, NY 13624
Phone: (315) 686-5592
After hours call Jefferson County Dispatch at (315) 686-3222
Fax: (315) 686-2132
Email: police@villageofclayton.org
About The Department
The Clayton Police Department is a full time police department composed of three full-time police officers and two part-time officers. The department’s relationship with the community is “community policing at its finest.” This is shown by the low crime rate statistics in the village. This is largely due to the “small-town” relationship that the citizens share with the Police Department. The officers routinely interact with the community and are able to have a finger on the pulse of what is going on in the Village as well as the sharing of concerns and problems relating to public safety between citizens, local government and the police, making this relationship an effective tool for proactively enforcing and solving community related police issues.
The officers of the Clayton Police Department are actively involved with the development of youth in the community by providing the young people activities such as snowmobile and all terrain vehicle safety courses, coaching sports activities and mentoring internship programs with the local school district. The officers often lecture at local schools and youth groups, promoting good citizenship and warning about “at risk activities” such as drugs, violence, etc.
On the Clayton Police vehicles is the Village motto: “Where the Tradition Continues.” To the Clayton Police Department this motto means the tradition of providing a safe and pleasant experience to all who enter and live in the Village of Clayton.
Mission Statement
The principal mission of the Clayton Police Department is to preserve the rights of all citizens and reduce fear in the community through the prevention of crime, protection of persons, property, and the maintenance of order in public places, to anticipate and respond to events threatening public order and the protection of life and property.
It is essential that all members remember that in the execution of their duties they act not for themselves but for the good of the community. They shall respect and protect the rights of all individuals and perform their services with honesty, zeal, courage, discretion, fidelity and sound judgement.
Police officers must seek and preserve public confidence by demonstration impartial service to law, and by offering service and trust to all members of the public.
It is the express policy of this department that the police officers will adhere to the following principles while performing their duties:
1. To prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and severity of legal punishment.
2. To recognize always that the power of the police to fulfill their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behavior, and on the ability to secure and maintain pubic respect.
3. To recognize always that to secure and maintain the respect and approval of the public means also the securing of the willing cooperation of the public in the task of securing observance of laws.
4. To recognize always that the extent to which the cooperation of the public can be secured diminishes proportionately the necessity of the use of physical force and compulsion for achieving police objectives.
5. To seek and preserve public favor, not by pandering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to law, in complete independence of policy, and without regard to the justice or injustice of the substance of individual laws, by ready offering of individual service and friendship to all members of the public without regard to their wealth, social standing, race, religion, national origin, or sexual orientation, by ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humor, and A ready offering of individual sacrifice in protecting and preserving life.
6. To use physical force only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient to obtain public cooperation to an extent necessary to secure observance of law or to restore order, and to use only the minimum degree of physical force which is necessary on any particular occasion for achieving a police objective.
7. To maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.
8. To recognize always the need for strict adherence to police-executive functions, and to refrain from even seeming to usurp the powers of the judiciary of avenging individuals or the State, and of authoritatively judging guilt or punishing the guilty.
9. To recognize always that the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them.
Reform and Reinvention Plan of the Clayton Police Department
The reform and reinvention Plan of the Clayton Police Department is to continue to carry out our duties in service to the public as we always have done. This is done by exercising empathy, respect and kindness to those that we serve. Whether it‘s a complainant or defendant, this mindset is always maintained throughout the performance of our duties. This department never has nor never will it be swayed by race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual preference. We first are problem solvers, helping our public with both simple and complex problems.
We have never been a department that felt the need to put the philosophy of what we do for our community in service to them into text. Our officers just do this willingly and most professionally each day they come to serve this community.
The policy and mission of the Clayton Police Department comes from principles for modern day law enforcement crafted by Sir Robert Peel, who is considered to be the “father of modern law enforcement” his principles and philosophy is a model for community policing .
The Clayton Police Department follows the “Peel Doctrine” in all policing activities. This doctrine is the heart of our Mission Statement and Reinvention Policy. Not reinventing but communicating it for all to read and understand what drives the Clayton Police Department in service to the residents and visitors of our great community.
The reform and reinvention plan of the Clayton Police department is:
1) To communicate the departments mission statement, using the principals of the “Peel Doctrine” and make this the official policy of the department for conducting our duties.
2) To revise the department’s use of force policy in order to bring the policy up to date with current legislation ie. Eric Garner anti chokehold act. Etc.
3) To continue to train our officers through regular in-service training
a) The understanding of our mission statement and how it relates to their professionalism and good community policing.
b) The ability to recognize and deescalate situations through proper use of force training as a first line of action prior to the use of physical force.
c) The understanding of current techniques that are more effective and less harmful to persons in custody but still keep officers safe while performing their duties.
4) To continue to evaluate and improve our professionalism and our relationship with the community we serve through maintaining an open channel of communication with the stakeholders developed in this process, the most important of those stakeholders being, the people we serve.
Respectfully,
Kevin J. Patenaude
Chief of Police