Message From The Chief

    Greetings and welcome to the River Vale Police Department web site!  River Vale is a small bedroom-community in northern Bergen County, New Jersey, approximately 20 minutes from New York City.  Although our population of approximately 10,500 residents is relatively small, our area of responsibility is one of the largest areas in the county (approximately 4.2 square miles.)  Our sole purpose is to provide quality police services to the community.  Our mission is to provide safety, security, crime prevention and criminal investigation to those within the township, while protecting the constitutional rights of all.  We are attempting to improve the delivery of police services, through a police/community partnership.

    A new buzzword, "community policing," came into existence for law enforcement, in the early 1990's.  Simply stated, the concept deals with law enforcement agencies creating partnerships with the members of the community to improve the quality of life.  The federal government began providing grants to agencies, to improve their community policing efforts.  The River Vale Police Department was a community policing agency decades before the term was even coined.  Some tasks, the basic tasks, have remained the same.  We still perform the age-old duties of patrol, crime prevention and criminal investigation.

    Over the past few years, however, we have begun expanding our services to the community.  We have expanded our D.A.R.E. classes for the 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th grades classes.  The Hillsdale Police Department (NJ,) conducts D.A.R.E. classes for our 10th graders, in the regional high school system.  We have been utilizing a computerized Swiftreach program, to check on the daily welfare of our senior citizens, for several years.  The community-policing unit conducts home inspections, to advise residents of methods to better protect themselves against burglaries.  We recently started a Bike Patrol unit for use at community events with unusually high attendance.  This past fall, we started a Junior Police Academy, for middle school students, which was very well received.  This year, we plan on beginning to conduct Senior Citizen Dinners.  Our senior residents will receive free gourmet meals, along with a seminar on a topic designed to help them protect themselves from predators that prey upon senior citizens.  This spring we will start conducting an annual Bicycle Rodeo, where children can bring their bikes, have their bicycles and helmets inspected and receive safety tips on bicycling.  We are also planning other important information.  We are also currently in the process of hiring civilian dispatchers.  This will free up police officers to perform other law enforcement duties, rather than performing dispatching/clerical tasks.

    The department has a young, aggressive patrol division.  The officers' high visibility helps in our crime prevention efforts.  Our detective bureau has an exceptional clearance rate and, for violent crimes, has a 100% clearance rate for the past several years.  The police department is also fortunate to have a township administration that supports it 100%, in providing police services to the community. The collaborative efforts of the police department, the township administration and the residents can only help provide a safer community for all to enjoy.