The Picayune Police Department unveils a game-show themed drug-enforcement program today that’s bound to catch the attention of drug-law violators.

Pictures of eight suspects wanted on drug charges have been placed on a game wheel. When the wheel spins at the Picayune Kiwanis Club’s noon meeting, the picture it lands on is the person who has just become Picayune’s most-wanted drug suspect. A police strike team will be notified by radio and will go after the person, said Deputy Police Chief David Ervin.

The program is named The Wheel of “Drug Enforcement” Justice, though the brightly colored display simply calls it the Wheel of Justice.

Ervin said the “winner” each week receives an all-expenses paid visit to the city jail and the only question to ask is, “What you gonna do when it stops on you?”

Ervin said Police Chief Jim Luke believes the program is the first of its type in the state and possibly the first in the nation that targets drug offenders.

“We hope it will encourage the public to come to us with information so we can make more arrests,” Ervin said.

The suspects’ pictures are concealed by a colored tab to protect their identities until it’s their turn to be in the spotlight, Ervin said. The wheel will be moved to different community meetings for the weekly spin while the program lasts.

“We’re making it a community affair,” Ervin said. “We want to put drug offenders on the offensive, not knowing who will be the next offender to be arrested, charged and prosecuted.”

Ervin said the police chief told his staff one day he had an idea about a using a “wheel of justice” to catch drug suspects and he found someone to construct it.

Police researched the idea and found other agencies around the country have used the concept for hunting felons, “but we haven’t really found any other place that uses the idea for drug-law violators,” Ervin said.