| One look at Robbie Lowery's resume and one could easily come to the conclusion that he has aspired to be elected Dane County Sheriff his entire professional life: Police cadet in Beloit in 1972, Beloit police officer, Milwaukee Police Department internal affairs officer, Milwaukee patrol sergeant, director of public integrity for the Wis. Dept. of Justice (DOJ), and now director of Administrative Services for DOJ's Criminal Investigation Division. He's done a lot of law enforcement work on a lot of different levels, the last part of his career on the managerial levels. When one sits down and talks with Lowery, one can't help but notice that he is a real nice person. "Don't be deceived," Lowery quipped. "I can turn the toughness on." Lowery just feels that a manager can be more effective when he treats people humanely. "Most people respond better to being nice than to come across as someone being difficult," he said. "Many people start off difficult. I start off in the other direction. Sometimes, I can talk them down. You can talk yourself out of trouble. You can also talk yourself into trouble. I prefer to talk myself out of trouble." Lowery knows that times have changed in law enforcement. In his view, the militaristic organization of yesterday won't work today. It's all about relationships with one's staff, other organizations, and the community. "A good manager and leader will place good people into places where they can succeed," Lowery said. "This involves training them, giving them assignments they want to do, giving them assignments that are important to them, knowing the crime trends, knowing what is good for the community and its direction, and guiding the department in that direction." This doesn&'t mean that Lowery will be touchy feely when it comes to crime prevention. "I will be tough on crime type of law enforcement officer as sheriff," Lowery emphasized. It just means that he knows the sheriff's department can't reduce crime and address violence by itself. ";We have gang violence," Lowery said. "Yes, we can arrest the children or young people. But we also have to understand the family dynamics of what is going on. That's larger than the sheriff's department. It's very important for the sheriff to interact with other agencies to solve our crime issues. In addition, law enforcement has a long history of working with fire departments and emergency management. We should also work with social agencies to find out what their concerns are and where the problems are. We need to work with school officials because they know who the problem children are and what the issues are." Lowery has paid attention to the demographic trends and realizes that Dane County is growing by over one percent or 3,200 people per year. This trend will have a tremendous impact on the department as well as the county. ";With that growth, comes a certain criminal element," Lowery said. "We're going to be forced to expand the county jail at some point in the future. I think we need to start planning that now, or at least have something on the board to look toward that growth." And Lowery feels that the sheriff's department must be prepared to play a key role and collaborate with other areas of government in the event of a natural disaster or terrorist event. On September 11, 2001, Lowery saw the terrorist attacks on TV. By the afternoon, he was a DOJ liaison with the Dept. of Military Affairs. "I spent the next two days watching the state prepare itself, putting security measures in place, securing state office buildings, making sure we had someone watching the water supply, making sure that law enforcement was aware of all of the things that were going on that might affect Wisconsin," Lowery emphasized. "We watched at Military Affairs how we ratcheted up our security and the general talked about how much each of his planes cost and how they were going to secure the military facility at Truax. That was extremely tense being aware of all of the issues going around in Wisconsin at the time." Lowery doesn't have much time to get his name out there. The Democratic primary will be held September 12. He's taken a leave of absence from his job to campaign and get the word out. For more information, you can write Lowery: Lowery for Dane County Sheriff, P.O. Box 2437, Madison, WI 53701. |
| Robbie Lowery announces for Dane County Sheriff Fully loaded by Jonathan Gramling |
 |
 |
| Homepage June 28, 2006 Archives |