The ultimate goal of crime prevention is to reduce the risk of being a victim. In order to accomplish this effectively, it is important to remove opportunities for a criminal to take advantage of you or your property. The Shenandoah County Sheriff's Office is attempting to prevent either victimization or criminalization by presenting an unattractive target to the criminal. The efforts of this division plan activities based on this fundamental idea. 

Another theme to the topic of crime prevention refers to the crime prevention triangle of risk, opportunity and desire. Crime prevention occurs when we try to reduce the risk of victimization while increasing the risk of being caught. The Sheriff's Office tries to reduce the opportunities for victimization while increasing opportunities. We also try to reduce the desire to commit crimes with strong criminal investigations and sharing of information with our community outreach efforts while increasing the desire for citizens to be a contributor to the improvement of our county.

Successful crime prevention efforts will promote a safer community by enhancing the perception of safety and the attitudes and behaviors that help people feel safe. On this page you will find all the ways the Sheriff's Office reaches out. Please take a few minutes to check them out. If you should need more information on any of the programs you see here, please contact us.

Lastly the Crime Prevention division of Shenandoah County has an ongoing mission to safety and wellbeing for all the people that live or are just passing through Shenandoah County.