PARIS – The Oxford County Sheriff’s Office hopes to improve its services with the help of two grants, one already awarded and another that’s been requested.

The department has been awarded a highway safety grant of $4,500 to enforce speed limits, Lt. Christopher Wainwright said.

The money, which must be used by mid-October, will be used for overtime pay. One deputy will be out for about five hours a day at sites known to have speeding problems, Wainwright said.

Two problem areas have been Route 219 between routes 26 and 4, and Route 93 in Sweden, Wainwright said.

The department will also target school zones, Wainwright said.

This is the first year the department has been awarded the speed enforcement grant, although the department has received similar grants for seat-belt enforcement, and prevention of driving under the influence, Wainwright said.

Another grant has been requested to stop domestic violence from reoccurring, and also to help domestic violence victims, said Lt. Hart Daley, criminal investigator.

This is a federally funded grant, which would put in place a program already instituted in several other counties, Daley said.

The program would form a rapid intervention deployment team. Team members would make unannounced visits to the victims of domestic violence and investigate their situation.

This way officers could determine if the victims had any contact with the offender, Daley said. Often, offenders will revisit the victims thus violating their bail agreement, then the victims would not report it.

“There’s a million reasons why they don’t call us,” Daley said. “Sometimes they don’t feel comfortable. There can be threats, or fear, intimidation.”

During the visits the officers would also interview children and neighbors, Daley said.

Domestic violence is one of the biggest problems in the state, Daley said. More than 50 percent of homicides are domestic related.