OVERVIEW

The Police Stations layer shows the point locations of 437 law enforcement and sheriff offices in Massachusetts, including local, county and state jurisdictions. The Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) GIS Program in cooperation with the Regional Planning Agencies and participating communities created the data as part of the development of Homeland Security Data Layers. The features represented include municipal police stations and Massachusetts State Police barracks. Although sheriffs are not technically charged with the same law enforcement tasks as local and state police, county sheriff headquarters are also included in this layer. The duties of the sheriffs include the management and operation of regional correctional systems and transportation of prisoners, service of judicial process and delivery of legal documents needed to support the operation of the courts, community policing, running various outreach services, and the enforcement of laws enacted for the public safety, health and welfare of the people. Not included in this layer are Environmental Police, Campus Police and various state and federal level law enforcement. Stored in the ArcSDE, the statewide layer is named POLICESTATIONS_PT_MEMA.

MEMA GIS staff used a contacts database updated with MASS.GOV data to geocode the station addresses using ArcGIS. The layer points were updated based on regional planning agency data (see attribute L_SRC for more detail). MEMA GIS and MassGIS staff reviewed for completeness and accuracy using Pictometry, ortho imagery parcel databases, departments web sites and by calling towns. Horizontal accuracy of the points is 1:5,000 or better.

The layer's point attribute table contains the following items:

NAME		Name of facility
ADDRESS		Address of facility
CITY		Municipality in which facility is located
ZIP		Facility ZIP Code
JURISDIC		Jurisdiction of law enforcement officials:   LOCAL - Municipal or local police   STATE - Massachusetts State Police   COUNTY - County Sheriff officers
L_SRC		Location source
SOURCE		Attribute source
L_DATE		Location date

MEMA will provide any updates to MassGIS. Please send any corrections or updates to:

Johanna Meyer
Massachusetts Emergency Managment Agency
Framingham, MA 01702
508-820-2000 (voice)
508-820-2030 (fax)
johanna.meyer@state.ma.us

Last Updated 2/22/2007
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