Justice In Ohio

PISGS would like to hear how our licensed security guard and private investigation companies "Contribute to a Safer Ohio"  Please take a moment to consider how you and your company make Ohio safer. What do you do on a daily basis to make our citizens feel safe and secure?

                                                Justice In Ohio  By: Jim Silvania

                        I received the above in email from the Ohio Department of Public Safety asking for comments as to what as a private investigator I do on a daily basis to make citizens in Ohio feel safer?

I cannot speak for every licensed private investigator in Ohio nor the Nation but I can reflect on my 33 years of being a private investigator and 20 years as a law enforcement officer in that state.

                        What private investigators in Ohio attempt to do is bring to its citizens is JUSTICE. You know the blind lady with the balancing scales. Something very lacking in this state. One only has to watch cable tv’s Investigation Discovery Channel or Spike TV to see the many miscarriages of justice in our state.  Missing women in Chillicothe, OH,  in Pepples, OH nine people shot and killed; both remain unsolved. I could go on, but you can catch the rest on either of the above-mentioned TV Channels.

                        Ohio is political unique in that it has 88 counties and therefore 88 county coroners and 88 county sheriffs, but only 4-5 of those counties have a forensic pathologist as the coroner. The others have your regular family physician with no forensic experience to determine the cause of death. In many cases private investigators in Ohio are called upon to relieve a family’s grief in attempting to determine the true cause of a wrongful death. Yearly a number of homicides in the State are written off as natural or accidental deaths.

                        The State of Ohio is like several other states nationwide that have a highway patrol rather than a state police with statewide policing jurisdiction. In Ohio, unless you commit a criminal act in a motor vehicle upon a state highway or on state property can justice be obtained by the Ohio Highway Patrol. Off the road, justice is left to local law enforcement which in most cases is one of the 88 county sheriffs. A requirement to become a law enforcement officer in one of those 88 sheriff’s department is only 695 hours of training. Although several of the departments may require more the basic standard for administering justice is 695 hours. Enough said for that matter.

            In regard to the 88 county sheriffs, there are ups and downs as in some of the southern and eastern counties of Ohio the department runs out of funds before the year ends and justice is reduced to bare bones or none at all. Every year two or three of those elected 88 sheriffs are indicted and convicted of RICO, Hatch Act or improper use of criminal justice funds; justice upon those who are required to bring its citizens justice.

            What does it take to become the head administrator of justice, a sheriff in all of these 88 counties: a high school degree or its equivalent, have been a law enforcement officer 13 pay periods within the four years prior to running for office and 2 years supervisory experience as a sergeant or above?  That’s not to say that by luck some of those 88 do a great job. But who picks up this justice slack for the Ohio Citizens, the Private Investigator.

            Who investigates complex major embezzlement and economic crimes for businesses. Not the FBI, they’re too busy allegedly catching a terrorist. Only the major cities in Ohio have educated and trained law enforcement officers who can bring about justice for the economically wronged. The rest of Ohio’s Citizens must rely on or pay for the services of a private investigator to bring about justice. Intellectual property crimes are also left to the enforcement of private investigators.

            Many domestic and child custody matters now days involve accusations of drug or child abuse. Private investigators are hired to obtain the truth in these allegations thus assisting citizens to obtain justice in said matters.             Probate matters other than finding rightful heirs often lead to a fight over that last dollar on the table. Private investigators attempt to bring justice in probate matters to the rightly deserved. Wrongful incarceration, when law enforcement evades justice, requires in most cases a private investigator to obtain justice for the wrongly incarcerated individual.

            As you can see in Ohio, as in every other state, obtaining justice is not a sole responsibility of the State. The private investigator can assist it citizenry to obtain the justice they desire. And it is justice, and the search therein that provides for a safer and more honest State.