NORPAC

Norfolk County Police Anti-Crime Task Force

  The Norfolk County Police Anti-Crime Task Force, or NORPAC, is a multi-agency unit comprised of police detectives from fourteen police departments in Norfolk County.  It was formed in 1988 under a grant by the US Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA).  The BJA is a branch of the US Justice Department, and one of its missions is to funnel federal law enforcement grant money to the states.  In 1988 the Massachusetts Committee on Criminal Justice was the state agency responsible for doling out BJA funds to state and local police departments.  Today, that responsibility lies with the Programs Division of the Executive Office of Public Safety (EOPS).

In the beginning, the task force was known as the Northern Norfolk Drug Task Force.  It was originally established to facilitate a multi-agency approach to drug enforcement throughout the northern region of Norfolk County. In 1996, at the urging of EOPS, its mission was expanded to also encompass organized crime, serial crime, violent crime, crimes committed by traveling criminals, and fugitive apprehension.  However, task force detectives still spend the vast majority of their time conducting drug investigations.

The geographical area covered by NORPAC is comprised of fourteen communities located in northern Norfolk County.  They are Canton, Dedham, Foxboro, Medfield, Needham, Norfolk, Norwood, Plainville, Sharon, Stoughton, Walpole, Wellesley, Westwood, and Wrentham.  The current municipalities occupy two hundred sixteen square miles and have a collective population of two hundred seventy thousand people.  The region is bisected by Interstate Route 95, and bordered to the northeast by Boston and to the south by Rhode Island.         

When the task force was formed in 1988, a fundamental decision was made that NORPAC would function as a decentralized task force.  Some task forces are centralized units, where detectives reported to an off-site location and answer only to task force supervisors.  Decentralized task forces, on the other hand,, operate out of the various police departments in their region, and detectives work day-to-day in their own communities, teaming up on an ad hoc basis.  The advantages of this model are that detectives do not lose touch with their own agency, their community, or with local informants.  Additionally, individual agencies retain command of drug investigations that occur in their local communities while taking advantage of the wide range of resources offered by the task force.   

Today, NORPAC is comprised of fairly new detectives as well as veterans who have served with the task force since its inception.  The result is a unit that can supply young undercover officers guided and overseen by highly experienced investigators, as well as seasoned detectives who can mentor new ones.  Each year NORPAC detectives, working hand-in-hand with police officers from their own agencies, arrest dozens of drug law violators throughout the region.  Detectives regularly seize cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and prescription drugs being sold unlawfully.  Administration of the task force is shared by the Wellesley and Norwood police departments.