GANGLAND’S FINEST
California’s Special Service Unit takes on the most violent-offender cases in and out of the U.S. prison system.
Tasked with tracking down prison escapees, fugitives and parolees, SSU agents must be prepared to operate in any tactical environment to apprehend these repeat offenders. Veritas Officium Aequitas—SSU’s unofficial motto of Truth, Duty, Justice—sums up their past, present and future role as CDCR’s investigative bureau.
Although the CDCR (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation) may be the primary recruiting ground for the elite SSU (Special Service Unit), its members are neither detention specialists nor parole officers. The SSU is all about investigating and apprehending violent offenders, most of whom are graduates of the CDCR’s institutions and/or programs.
Solid training equates to safe and successful missions. With such a small number of SSU agents in California, the on-call SSU must remain vigilant and tactically proficient as individual operators and as a unit.
One of the biggest misconceptions, even among law enforcement, is that SSU is a highly specialized parole unit, which they are not. SSU serves as the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation ‘s investigative bureau. They are the police agency within the CDCR. CDCR is one of the largest agencies in California and navigating around that huge organization can be rather confusing to the outsider.
The SSU was formed at the request of the Governor of California, to establish a liaison between the CDCR and other law enforcement agencies. With a large percentage of the crime being committed by repeat offenders, SSU is the compass and liaison that bridges the gap between the world of corrections and law enforcement agencies, state and federal.
March 2nd, 2011 at 1:31 am
I some how lost this issue I think one of the guys in my department snaked it but you had an emblem for the SSU do you think I could get a copy of that
December 9th, 2010 at 6:21 pm
Any chance you guys will be publishing an article covering the CDCR’s Crisis Response Teams, at some point? Or other specialized corrections units like CT DOC’s Special Operations Group, or NE DOC Special Operations Response Team?