Establishing a Search and Rescue Program

About the Program

Category: Criminal Justice and Public Safety (Best in Category)

Year: 2013

In 2012, the Peoria County Sheriff's Office established a Search and Rescue (SAR) program to assist local law enforcement agencies with searches of missing persons. Only 22 of 102 counties in the state of Illinois can claim such an asset. Since its creation last spring, the County's SAR has recruited almost 40 volunteers. These trained men and women prove invaluable when someone goes missing in Peoria County, a neighboring community, or elsewhere in the state. The purpose of Peoria County's Search and Rescue program is to serve as an additional resource for the Sheriff's Office and other local law enforcement agencies in response to a missing person. Ultimately, the goal of any search and rescue team is to locate the missing person before harm comes to him or her; having properly trained personnel on the ground improves those chances. Indeed, Peoria County's SAR team has already experienced success, in addition to its recruitment efforts. The team was deployed to Douglas County in Illinois last June on a call of a missing 76-year-old Alzheimer's patient. The man had been missing for 24 hours when members of Peoria County's team found him in a cornfield, alive but unable to communicate.