The Jefferson City Council approved hiring an additional police officer earlier this week.

Twenty-two year-old Perry native Caleb Jans becomes the police department’s eighth officer. Jans graduated from Perry High School in 2013 and will graduate with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Simpson College in May. His father, Perry Police Officer and Perry School District Liaison Patrick Jans, has been serving the community for 20 years, and Caleb says that’s one of the reasons he wanted to go into law enforcement.

“Growing up I would watch my dad do it and I saw the impact that he had on the students in the school district in general. Service is something that’s important to me so I just wanted to combine the two and make something of it like he did and make a career out of it.”

Because Jans will have a college degree, he qualifies for the shortened training program at the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy. He will attend the Academy this fall for eight weeks. Jans describes what he is looking forward to the most working in Jefferson.

“Just meeting new people and hearing people’s stories. I like to interact with people. So if you see me on the street, stop and say ‘hi’, tell me who you are and I would love to meet you.”

Jans will start as a patrol officer this Friday with a salary of $39,516.