Evolution of the CHP
...by Mark Drake
The California Highway Patrol was established just a few weeks before the great stock market crash of 1929, as a part of the state's Division of Motor Vehicles, under the Department of Public Works. The Division of Motor Vehicles itself graduated to departmental status in 1931, by which time the CHP comprised 394 officers, 262 motorcycles, and 179 cars.
Shortly after World War II, the Patrol was spun off from the DMV and became the Department of the California Highway Patrol, to be headed by a Commissioner appointed by the Governor. The 1989 article from which this information is drawn says, "Thus on October 1, 1947, the Department of the California Highway Patrol was created with the responsibility of enforcing the provision(s) of Divisions 9 and 11 of the Vehicle Code, and any and all other laws pertaining to the operation of vehicles and the use of the highways...by and large, the department is still constituted as it was in 1947."
From the mid-60s, the CHP began from time to time to take on specialized assignments (such as those concerned with political demonstrations) rather than remaining limited to "laws pertaining to the operation of vehicles and the use of the highways." Governor Ronald Reagan used them on the U.C. Berkeley campus in 1964 in response to the campus Free Speech Movement uprising; and they were not merely present at the later demonstration staged at the site of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, they were specifically detailed to coordinate all law enforcement response to that event. Apparently, the CHP considers that assignment to be of historic importance to them, as their publications office still proudly offers to the public its report "Diablo Canyon '81."
A major boon to expansion of the CHP into enforcement areas outside its traditional purview came with the Reagan Administration's declaration of the Drug War. To quote the CHP's 1995 annual report, "Perspectives": "The Department has participated in the CAMP (Campaign Against Marijuana Planting) Program since its inception in 1983. Departmental officers have acted as Helitak Manager, Regional Operations Commanders (ROC), Assistant Regional Operations Commanders (AROC), CAMP Reconnaisance and Arrest Team (C-RAT) members, and Eradication Team members. During the 1995 CAMP season, departmental personnel participated in 225 raids in nine counties..." Infusion of state grant money in 1988 and federal funds starting in 1991 specifically to direct the CHP into drug interdiction bought specialized training courses, as well as a number of dogs (from one in 1987 to about 20 in 1991), and expanded the initial "Operation Pipeline" into CONET (Commercial Operator Narcotics Enforcement Team, the primary goal of which was originally to intercept drugs being transported by commercial vehicles) -- an operation which "freed highly trained drug-interdiction officers from routine patrol duties allowing them to focus on intercepting drugs on California's highways." Thus was born a new career track within the Department.
The California State Police was founded around 1880. It discharged various duties, such as providing security for state buildings and certain public hearings, serving warrants for the state's taxing authorities, and protection of certain dignitaries. Presumably in the interest of administrative efficiency and cost control, the members of that agency (269 of them uniformed officers) were merged into the CHP in mid-1995 -- increasing the CHP's sworn officer count by about five percent to around 6000. Most states have never had more than a single law enforcement agency at the state level and now California has adopted that administrative unity. It's reasonable to expect one result of this to be that officers nominally assigned to highway patrolling duties will be increasingly encouraged to drift further from the focus of their original mandate -- the one concerning operation of vehicles and use of the highways -- and towards considering their assignment to be to act as the eyes and ears (and arms) of Sacramento throughout the State.
|
|
