A rural police officer’s best weapon against crime isn’t a gun, police cruiser or tracking dog.
“The best tool is knowledge of the place, knowledge of the people, knowledge of the layout of the land,” said Christopher Braiden, an advocate of community policing.
This allows police to recognize inconsistencies such as strange vehicles in the area and check them out, Braiden said. The former Edmonton police superintendent spoke last month at a University of Saskatchewan public lecture.
Another vital part of rural crime prevention is residents being aware. Programs like Rural Watch are “very important if they’re used and if they’re active,” said Braiden.
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Knowing and getting involved with the members of the community is the basis of community policing.
“It’s a much more involved model. It depends on how people and the police pull together.”
Braiden sees a cultist nature developed by conventional policing. Police officers spend most of their time, on the job and socially, with each other. And the way they do their police work is to focus on catching criminals, rather than preventing crime – enforcing the law instead of keeping the peace.
“For me, community policing is a restructuring of the inner culture. Police have to spend less time in our company and more in the communities.”
Former RCMP officer Gion Bezzola agrees. When he worked in rural Saskatchewan he had a network set up so that when something happened, he knew every farmer. That is starting to change.
“Some of them (current RCMP) are missing the benefits of having what I call that community mindset,” said Bezzola, now the director of security for the U of S.
“There’s not any magic here,” he said. “It’s having the curiosity and interest to really get to know the communities.”
