SANFORD (AP) – The Sanford Police Department plans to ask town councilors to give its officers the power to make arrests not just in Sanford, but anywhere in the state.

Police Chief Tom Jones said his proposal, which he plans to present to the council next month, seeks to give full-time Sanford police officers statewide jurisdiction to enforce felony laws or make arrests in dangerous situations.

A 2003 state law gives local police departments statewide arrest powers with the permission of their local governing body. If the Sanford Town Council approves the plan, the department will become one of only a handful statewide with such powers.

Jones said his department has drawn up extensive standard operating procedures for arrests outside Sanford.

The new powers, he said, would help his department investigate and make arrests in complicated cases that involve several communities, such as drug investigations. Statewide arrest powers would also cut down on work for communities that now must issue warrants and make the arrests for outside law enforcement agencies.

“We are not authorizing the officer to go out of town and start making traffic stops,” Jones said.

Police in most communities have no jurisdiction outside their own borders, beyond the right to make a citizen’s arrest.

In Brunswick, the Town Council gave its police statewide jurisdiction on a one-year trial, and only for felonies. Police Chief Jerry Hinton said there have been no reports of rogue police behavior, and that public safety has improved because there are more police officers who can operate statewide.

Hinton was a strong supporters of statewide arrest legislation after working in New Hampshire, where local police have had statewide jurisdiction for years.

He said Brunswick councilors’ main objections to extending his officers’ arrest powers were economic. He said councilors wanted police officers enforcing laws for Brunswick taxpayers, not for taxpayers in other communities.

In Sanford, Jones said he expects similar concerns and does not expect his proposal to be an easy sell.

York Police Chief Daniel Bracey said he too plans to go before the town’s selectmen to ask for extended arrest powers.

He said statewide jurisdiction would improve public safety in geographically large communities with limited police resources. York officers, he said, can sometimes respond quicker to serious offenses in a neighboring town than the local department can.

Bracey said it is obvious on any ride down the interstate that many Mainers know local departments have no jurisdiction. “If they see a municipal (police) unit, they still go by at 80 or 90 miles an hour.”

Not all police chiefs are enthusiastic about statewide arrest powers. Saco Police Chief Bradley Paul said his department has little need for them.

“In Maine, we have a comparatively low crime rate, and particularly a low violent crime rate. We function pretty well under the old law,” he said.