HUTCHINSON, Kan. — When new Hutchinson Police Chief Jeff Hooper was sworn into office, he talked about things he would like to implement here that were used at his previous job in Manhattan.

One change is having officers work fixed beats. Before this change, the department had the city broken up into six beats. The officers changed beats daily.

Chief Hooper believes that an officer focused on one beat can work on issues long term. The goal is for the officer to develop a better relationship with the citizens in their area. This will also help officers take ownership of their beat. Within the next couple of weeks, they will be introducing different beat officers.

Another change is a program that the chief enacted, the Repeat Offender Program or R.O.P.

This is not a program aimed at a person who just made a bad decision, according to officials. It is aimed at career offenders who prey on local citizens daily.

Hutchinson police now have an R.O.P. detective and several R.O.P. officers who work side-by-side with prosecutors to identify repeat offenders.

While this program is just in its infancy, they have already seen success. R.O.P. officers served a search warrant Tuesday on a repeat offender suspected of selling meth very close to HMS-8.