People living in Kewanee, Illinois are starting to notice more drug arrests in their community. It's partially because of an influx in drug trafficking, but also because of the local police effort.
Kewanee Police Chief James Dison told TV-6, since the beginning of 2011, the department has made 175 drug arrests.
"It's just good old fashioned police work in the field," said Dison.
From raids to simple traffic stops, Kewanee P.D. is cracking down on drug trafficking.
"They're even stopping cars even for seat belts and then they find drugs in their cars," noticed Kewanee resident Darlene Smith.
"There's a lot more of the undercover people," said Kewanee resident Tina Wells. "They're really trying hard to get it under control."
While the efforts are obvious now, it's a plan put into play four years ago that has the city of Kewanee seeing changes. The police department launched a new initiative on the war against drugs when it started a street crimes unit.
"In essence, we went from having one officer to that was investigating narcotics and illegal drugs, to having three full-time officers dedicated to it," Dison said.
That initiative started in 2008, and in that year, police made 159 drug related arrests. That's twice as many arrests as the department was able to make just two years before that, in 2006. The street crimes unit may not be large, but the effort is yielding results.
"It just takes time and all of a sudden they're coming to fruition now," Dison said. "Drug investigations are not something that happens overnight. They take a long time, some take months, some take years depending on what scope of the investigation and what level of conspiracy it gets to."
Dison also says the three-man street crimes unit is successful because of support throughout the police department.
"Officers in the field, patrol officers, uniformed officers, making traffic stops, developing information. There's a lot of work going on behind the scenes by a very good and dedicated group of people."
And that has the people of Kewanee saying "thank you."
"I'm just glad they're doing their job ..." said Smith, "... and you can depend on them."
