Interior's agents lack training, supervision

By Greg Lakes, editor
Headwaters News
Nov. 13, 2002

National Park Service and BLM agents are part of the Interior Department's police force, the third-largest federal law-enforcement agency and one of its most dysfunctional.

There have been decades of critical reports, the most recent one last July, which said Interior's 4,300 personnel in seven agencies were so poorly managed that officials couldn't even provide the number or location of agents who could assist with the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to a Nov. 3 New York Times article.

Interior Secretary Gale Norton formed another panel to conduct another study and appointed a former FBI official, Larry R. Parkinson, to the newly created director of law enforcement and security.

Parkinson was to implement the recommendations of the panel, but seemingly true to form, has a tiny staff and few resources, and any by agency heads, the article said.

A study last year by the independent National Academy of Public Administration found problems in management, leadership, accountability and communications.

A 2000 report by the International Association of Chiefs of Police found a "glaring absence of field training," according to the Washington Post.

The Park Service solves about 14 percent of reported crimes, that report said, half the national average.

Last May, U.S. attorneys complained they were having trouble prosecuting agencies' cases, and an inspector general's report said half the agencies' supervisors had no law enforcement training.

Last year, authorities intercepted 200,000 illegal immigrants and 700,000 pounds of drugs, just in Arizona's Organ Pipe National Monument.

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