Public safety can be enhanced
NEW INITIATIVES IN OTHER CITIES HAVE PROVEN SUCCESSFUL
It’s that time when all the departments in the City of Lethbridge are preparing for the next four-year budget cycle and in the conversations I’ve had it’s apparent the safety and security of the downtown core and city in general is a common theme.
We are also hearing from groups such as the Heart of our City Committee and Downtown Business Revitalization Zone (BRZ) that they too are focused on the safety of the people who live, shop and pass through the city centre.
As part of our budget planning process, the Lethbridge Police Service has partnered with Lethbridge College and Dr. Faron Ellis to survey citizens and stakeholders. One of the questions we asked focused on the public’s receptiveness to new ideas for alternative responses to public safety — specifically the willingness to embrace increased community partnerships and engagement initiatives. I’m looking forward to the seeing the results of the survey which will help us determine if citizens are prepared to accept and move on strategies that have been used successfully in larger cities with far more complex safety and social issues including initiatives that are managed by the City and groups like the BRZ and Heart of our City.
Models like this have been in place in other provinces for many years. In Saskatoon, Community Support Officers have been in place since 2012 and recently became a permanent part of the city’s collective efforts at public safety. Interestingly, the report pitching the idea to make the CSO program permanent came from their municipal planning, development and community services committee — not the police.
CSOs are distinctive from the police, outfitted in highly visible red jackets, interact with many of the city’s vulnerable populations and their patrol is typically on foot in the alleyways and out-of- the way places that negative activities occur. They are also allowed to enforce bylaws.
I was recently in Saskatoon and can attest that they seemed to be everywhere on foot in the downtown — even after dark. They were very visibly engaging the public and augmenting the regular police presence. They liaise with the police regularly but they are a city and communitydriven enhancement to policing that promotes safety. In observing them, one could not help but feel incredibly safe.
In Winnipeg, The Business Improvement Zone (BIZ) — their equivalent of our BRZ and Heart of Our City — has a longstanding program called the Downtown Watch. Watch Ambassadors, who are largely volunteers, are outfitted in red shirts and jackets to be highly visible and communicate through two-way radios that connect them to each other and the police. They patrol on foot, bicycle and recently acquired an All Terrain Vehicle (ATV).
When I heard about the ATV, I was initially suspect, but when it was explained that it is decaled in reflective markings and equipped with moveable floodlights to illuminate areas where negative activities occur, it essentially becomes a mobile Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) tool — brilliant!
Watch Ambassadors serve as the eyes and ears for public safety and liaise closely with the Winnipeg Police Service, BIZ stakeholders and citizens. They come from the areas they patrol and have an intimate knowledge of the lay of the land. I have ties to Winnipeg and have spent a lot of time in that city. I have nothing but praise for the efforts of the Winnipeg Police, the City of Winnipeg and their community groups that banded together to promote public safety.
The Bear Clan is another community group that is also highly visible and serves the FNMI population to ensure safety. They recently expanded to patrol and serve the northside of Winnipeg. My observation is you cannot venture to downtown Winnipeg without seeing Watch Ambassadors or The Bear Clan on patrol. Again, it’s an impressive display of city and communitydriven initiatives that have had an obvious positive impact on public safety.
In the summer of 2016, I was in Winnipeg and walking around downtown when I came across a very elderly man wearing the distinctive Watch Ambassadors’ red shirt, a tool belt and carrying a radio. In the tool belt was an array of products to remove graffiti. I watched him for about 10 minutes as he worked away at a piece of graffiti that I recognized from my time in northwestern Ontario as wannabe gang tagging.
I approached the elderly gentleman and asked what he was doing. He proceeded to explain the obvious and I questioned whether he was concerned if the people who painted the tag would approach him or rough him up. He pointed to a building across the street that was obviously an old, established building from long ago and told me how he and his family lived there over 65 years ago. It was his childhood home and this was HIS neighbourhood. If anybody challenged him he was connected by radio to other Watch Ambassadors who were nearby, typically in their early 20s and as he described “in great shape like that Schwarzenegger guy” to keep him safe until the Winnipeg Police Cadets or regular police could get there.
WOW! I was already a huge fan of the impressive efforts of the Downtown Watch and The Bear Clan but that personal experience put my belief over the top. Seeing the recent coverage of The Bear Clan’s expansion into the north end of Winnipeg also paints a clear picture that these efforts driven by community organizations working with the city and community, clearly work. A large part of why these programs work is training, accountability and administration (scheduling, deployment, reporting, etc.).
In speaking with my colleagues in Saskatoon and Winnipeg, it is clear these groups are welltrained, accountable and properly administered. They have to be. When dealing with public safety it is naïve and just plain wrong for anybody to suggest that any town, city, municipality or community group connected to public safety would skimp on training, accountability and administration. There is far too much risk and liability associated with public safety for these three elements to be ignored. These groups are enhancing public safety and in some cases dealing with situations that will be turned over to the police. They know that and it is a responsibility that they take seriously.
I have always maintained that public safety is not the sole responsibility of the police. It is a community effort. It is very encouraging to me that conversations among groups in our city are happening to ponder if Lethbridge is ready to consider proven initiatives to enhance public safety are community and city-driven like the Downtown Watch, The Bear Clan and CSOs.
Authentic community safety requires genuine community engagement and real community participation and it is my sincere hope that our citizens are open to new strategies and concepts that will see more organized and grass roots groups and volunteers take an active role in public safety. After all, as Sir Robert Peel stated more than 150 years ago, “the police are the public and the public are the police.”