Shuttle provides 1-way ride

Jeff Wilson spends his days driving people around, but his taxi service is more of a one-way affair.

The North Charleston police officer is an inaugural member of the Police Department's new transport unit, which ferries freshly arrested suspects to area jails and lockups.

The idea is to free street officers from being sidelined for long stretches of time while waiting to book the newly arrested into detention centers. It doesn't take much on a busy night for the Charleston County jail to back up, filling hallways with prisoners waiting to fingerprinted, searched and processed.

Add in drive time to and from the jail and that's a lot of lost hours.

"That's time they could be out there solving more crimes," North Charleston Police Chief Jon Zumalt said.

Dedicating a special unit to the task of prisoner transportation is an idea that has been catching on. Charleston police started a similar shuttle last year and have been pleased with the results. Mount Pleasant also has a shuttle van it uses for jail runs whenever it has two suspects or more.

In many ways, the concept is really just an update on the old paddy wagon method dating to the early 1900s. But in recent years, many departments had employed a more individual approach: You make the arrest, you book the suspect in.

Zumalt plans to hire drivers trained as gun-carrying jailers to drive the vans so sworn officers like Wilson can go back to the street on patrol.

That's what Charleston police do. But in truth, Wilson hasn't minded the assignment at all.

It has allowed him to learn more routes around North Charleston and become acquainted with officers on different shifts. He also feels like he's helping the cause.

"This keeps officers on the streets, so you don't have 5 or 6 officers tied up for an hour or two at the county jail," he said. "This way you just have one."