Seniors can make a great resource, as The Granny Patrol: Florida Recruits Elderly Volunteers points out:
Senior citizens are volunteering for police forces in record numbers, says the Senior Corps, a federal service program. They’re aiming radar guns, taking fingerprints and watching out for terrorists. In recent years, hundreds of senior-policing programs have been created across the country, with retirees donating millions of hours.On many short-handed police forces, they’ve become indispensable, especially in Florida where some of the earliest programs started. Here in Boynton Beach, 1,537 seniors now volunteer, up 260% since 1998. Last year, they logged 45,113 hours on the Citizen Observer Patrol, freeing up officers for more crucial duties.
[...]
In nearby Delray Beach, 70 senior volunteers now write 99% of the city’s parking tickets — about 10,000 a year.
Sometimes they do more than write traffic tickets — although the real cops still do the “heavy lifting”:
Delray seniors are already potent weapons against local criminals. Once, when condominium parking lots were hit by a rash of car break-ins, police flooded the city’s condo complexes with seniors in slow-moving patrol cars, their yellow lights flashing. One lot, though, was purposely left dark and seemingly unguarded. That’s where the real police waited in a hidden stake-out.“The burglars took the bait,” says Delray Police Capt. Ralph Phillips. “We channeled them right into that parking lot. It took just one day.”