Tourism Oriented Policing: An Examination of a Florida/Caribbean Partnership for Police Training
| Author | Ross Wolf |
| DOI | 10.1350/ijps.2008.10.4.095 |
| Published date | 01 December 2008 |
| Date | 01 December 2008 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Tourism oriented policing: an examination
of a Florida/Caribbean partnership for
police training
Ross Wolf
Department of Criminal Justice and Legal Studies, University of Central Florida,
PO Box 161600, Orlando, FL 32816-1600. Tel: +1 407 823 5351; Fax: +1 407 823 5360;
email: rwolf@mail.ucf.edu
Received 21 July 2007; accepted 2 January 2008
Keywords: community oriented policing, training, multi-national,
Caribbean, tourism
Ross Wolf
is an assistant professor of Criminal
Justice at the University of Central Florida. He
continues to serve as Division Chief of the
Orange County (Florida) Sheriff’s Office (OCSO)
Reserve Unit, a police academy instructor, and
as coordinator of the OCSO Law Enforcement
Officer Training Corps. He has over 16 years of
experience as a law enforcement officer and has
worked various assignments including patrol,
criminal investigations and with a plainclothes
tactical unit.
A
BSTRACT
A partnership was created in late 2000 between
the University of Central Florida (UCF), the
Saint Lucia Hotel and Tourism Association
(SLHTA), the government of Saint Lucia, and
the private tourism corporations of the island of
Saint Lucia. This alliance has provided unpreced-
ented police training in tourism oriented policing.
This training focuses on ways governments and
police agencies can promote the image of a safe
environment to promote a strong tourism eco-
nomy. The fundamental drive behind the training
has been to enhance the skills of police and
security personnel in dealing with criminal activ-
ity in tourism environments. This paper examines
the concept and principles of tourism oriented
policing, and creates a template for future pro-
grammes and initiatives designed to promote a
safe tourism environment to promote economic
vitality.
AN OVERVIEW OF THE PROBLEM
Before examining the current literature on
tourism oriented policing, it is impor tant to
understand the political, social and eco-
nomic nature of the Caribbean island coun-
try of Saint Lucia. For the islands of the
Caribbean,1tourism reportedly accounts
for more than 50 per cent of the economy
and as much as 90 per cent on the smaller
islands (‘Crime threatening’, 2002; United
Nations, 1996). Since 1993, tourism has
been the only Caribbean industry that has
shown steady growth, expanding by a
reported 600 per cent between 1970 and
1994 (Gayle & Tewarie, 1997; Wolf, 2002).
However, since 11 September 2001 the
islands have had to face the reality of a
world economy unsure of travel, and des-
tinations that have depended significantly
on American travellers have suffered a dis-
proportionate loss of economy from the
tourism industry (World Tourism Organiza-
tion, 2001). While economic downturn and
rising unemployment have been linked to
International Journal of Police
Science and Management,
Vol. 10 No. 4, 2008, pp. 402–416.
DOI: 10.1350/ijps.2008.10.4.095
International Journal of Police Science & Management Volume 10 Number 4
Page 402
To continue reading
Request your trial