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This is an organization that was created
by police officers who saw they had to meet a special need.
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They recognized that more and more police
departments were creating special units to investigate
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vice crimes, and yet they lacked a sure-fire
way to exchange information with colleagues that would
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help all of them to do a better job. Far
too often, the flow of information between jurisdictions was
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non-existent or haphazard at best - a common
problem among many specialized groups within a
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law enforcement entity. Detectives assigned
to vice units within several police departments
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took action in 1981. They decided they would
no longer allow heavy workloads and
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jurisdictional boundaries to prevent investigators
from sharing significant data throughout
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the area east of the Mississippi.
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The rewards, in vice crimes solved and prevented,
could be enormous.
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Led by detectives from the Washington,
D.C., Metropolitan Police Department, they established
the Eastern States Vice Investigators Association,
Inc. (ESVIA). Immediately, it became apparent
that illegal drug use was intertwined with
vices crimes. Police Departments, especially the smaller ones,
were forced to utilize detectives assigned
to their vice units for narcotics work as well. The ESVIA
Board
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of Directors revised the organization's
criteria for membership to cover officers involved in narcotics
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law enforcement and in vice investigations
or both, or who want more data about them.
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The result was a quantum increase in ESVIA
membership, together with an expanded agenda
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at the organization's annual conferences.
Course schedules now include extremely
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useful discussions and instructions on such
topics as search and seizure procedures,
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surveillance techniques and undercover
operations. An entire forum is devoted to legal issues
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that all police officers need to have at
their fingertips in this era.
