• Community Based Policing Manual
• Suspect Identity Chart
• All Saints T-Shirt
• Pen and Paper

02. Identify the difference between "Suspicious Activity" and "Vandalism."

03. With the aid of the Suspect Identity chart, list the key elements that should be noted when doing a simple person description.

04. List the key elements that should be noted when giving vehicle description.

05. Explain the "No Confrontation" aspect of the All Saints program.

06. Select the essential items required on one's person to be effective in the All Saints community patrol.

02. Write on Board:

Suspicious Activity and Vandalism

• Explain to the students that most activities can be considered suspicious, however, not all such activities warrant notifying the police. Here each All Saint will have to make a judgement call because what may seem suspicious to one person may be readily explained by someone else or may be seen as not overly important.
• Vandalism on the other hand can range from knocking over a mailbox to spray painting a vehicle. These are outright acts of crime and should be reported as soon as possible.

03. Circulate one of two Suspect Identity charts. Explain to students that, as police officers responding to calls, we need good descriptions, not exaggerations of suspects.As well, it is always helpful to know if someone is carrying something on their person, i.e. baseball bat, knife, gun, etc.

04. Vehicle descriptions, as was the case with suspects, must be as detailed as possible. Emphasize that the most important feature of a car is the license plate number.

Ask if there are any questions thus far and do a review.

• Undertake a staged or mock attack.
  

• Get another police officer or volunteer, dressed in a disguise, enter class, undertake a couple of quick acts of vandalism and then exit quickly. After this, ask the students to write down what they saw. This is to serve as a means of testing their new found knowledge. Compare some of the descriptions. Students probably will be surprised to learn that some things are seen differently by others.

05. No Confrontations: This is most important element for those students involved in the Community Patrol. Emphasize to students that they, under no circumstances, are to engage in any confrontations with people or groups. The All Saints will be deterrents by their presence. However, should students be confronted, they are to contact the police immediately either by way of telephone or using their radios or by other means which will be discussed in class.

Each All Saint must understand that he or she is considered to be a compellable witness by police. Therefore the police expect the full cooperation of the participating students if and when the police arrive at a crime scene this is especially important where an All Saint has witnessed something. Again, re-emphasize to students that no program is worth getting assaulted or hurt. The students should avoid these situations at all costs.

06.

• A. All Saints shirt
• B. Pen and Paper
• C. Flashlight
• D. Radio

Write A to D on board or give to the class in a handout.

A. All Saints shirt: Each team member is expected to wear his/her All Saint shirt. Stress the importance of not abusing shirt (such as loaning or giving it to friend) as the community is looking to the students to assist in providing a safe environment for Halloween. Be visible, your shirt alone will in some cases act as a deterrent to a would-be vandal.

B. Pen and Paper: Pen and paper can be part of the Suspect Identity Chart / Vehicle description plan. These items are essential for taking names, license plate numbers, making notes, descriptions, etc.

C. Flashlight: This is a very important safety feature. There should be at least one flashlight assigned to each group.

D. Radio: With the community patrol, it is ideal that there is be at least one radio per group. For the most part, these will probably be Citizens Band (CB) radios which can be borrowed, etc. (See All Saints "Resources Document")

If you are fortunate enough to have radios, remember to always use the Police radio codes taught to you by your teacher.

• Do not abuse your radios. Be clear, concise and brief in transmissions.
• Don't use the radios just to communicate with your friends. While doing so, for instance, someone may have an emergency and thus will need the channel for transmissions.

Ask for questions, review.

• Reiterate what this program offers the community and the expectations of the community.
• Stress the non-confrontational role of the All Saints.
• Advise the students that Police will be available and will provide full support should the need arise.

WISH ALL THE STUDENTS GOOD LUCK.

Community Policing in Canada taken from RCMP Publications:

Community policing has become a significant part of the police agenda in Canada. It is a progressive approach to contemporary law enforcement whose philosophy applies to the delivery of all policing services. It encourages more interaction and partnerships between the police and the public.

Community policing is designed to bring efficiency, effectiveness and responsiveness on the part of the police and respect for community priorities about fears of crime and how crime should be controlled. The community collaborates with the police to become co-producers of order and safety.

An effective commitment to community policing usually requires a profound fundamental and comprehensive adjustment to the culture and values of a police organization and the behaviour of its members. This commitment is often incorporated in the mission statements of police organizations in establishing rationale, direction and desired results. Thus, the RCMP as an initial step to realizing its community policing commitment has developed a mission statement to guide its employees.

"RCMP community policing is a partnership between the police and the community, sharing in the delivery of police services. With this valuable community cooperation, the RCMP pledges to:

• uphold the principles of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms;
• provide a professional standard of service.
• ensure all policing services are provided courteously and impartially;
• work with the community and other agencies to prevent or resolve problems that affect the community's safety and quality of life;
• act within the Canadian justice system to address community problems;
• promote a creative and responsive environment to allow all RCMP members to deliver community policing services."

The Force has also established and provided a complementary mission statement specifically addressing the relationship of detachments and the community:

"RCMP community policing is a partnership between the police and the community, sharing in the delivery of police services. Members of this detachment pledge to

• treat all people equally and with respect;
• uphold the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms;
• serve and protect the community;
• work with the community and other agencies to prevent or resolve problems that effect the community's safety and quality of life."

Community policing is often achieved through a decentralization of the police organization that permits community participation in designing and developing police policies and services. This process can occur through:

• organizational decentralization
• constant neighbourhood presence through foot patrols, store-front operations, etc.
• development of formal community consultation mechanisms such as Community Consultative Groups (CCGs).

Despite the barriers to the initial development of many CCGs in Canada, they are now generally recognized as the most effective means of facilitating partnerships between the police and the public. CCGs identify the underlying causes of problems, analyze and explore solutions and take appropriate action.

In other countries community policing has sometimes been instituted, in part, to establish credibility for the police in the community. For the most part, motivations like this have not been a central factor in Canada. Rather, most Canadian communities aim to develop a positive and ongoing relationship with the police that will result in safer and healthier communities.

The RCMP has a clear mandate to develop and implement CCGs as part of its community policing responsibility. The RCMP Commissioner specifically called for the creation of these committees in a directional policy in 1989:

"I wish to remind members on detachment that better policing is achieved by participation and partnership with citizens and communities in identifying social problems and in finding solutions to them. To this end, I support increased participation, visibility and the formulation of "citizen advisory groups" to allow us to know how the public views us." (RCMP 1989)

The recent experience of the RCMP and other Canadian police organizations in establishing CCGs suggests that:

• there is support in many communities for participating in the planning and provision of police services
• there is considerable experience in developing collaborative partnerships involving the police. Shared responsibilities in law enforcement are not new.
• there is considerable expertise available in most communities for creating CCGs.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police has, in recent years, mandated the philosophy of Community Based Policing to act as a core philosophy of how police work will be performed in the 1990s. Essentially, the old idea of police work being primarily police centered has fallen by the wayside and an in integral involvement by the community has replaced this older philosophy and is now in the mainstream.

Assistant Commissioner D.C. Cooper, Director of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Community and Aboriginal Policing, recently wrote that "community policing is community specific. The projects you undertake and problems you work to resolve, will depend to a large extent on the particular identified needs and the available resources of the community in which you are working." One would almost think that this statement was made while reading the All Saints program Plan Manual.

With the aforementioned in mind, the All Saints Program identified the problem of Halloween as being a time when many of the community youth, and some adults, would take advantage of the evening, committing small crimes such as Damage to Property, Theft under $1000.00 and Trespassing. The All Saints project brought together the youth of the community of Yarmouth and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in a concerted effort to deter these senseless acts of petty crime and provided some measure of security for their community.

In the four years that this program has been undertaken, the police in Yarmouth have noted a considerable drop in the number of complaints that are called into the Detachment. Ask any police officer who has worked the Halloween weekend in Yarmouth and frequent comment will be: "Those All Saints shirts are all over town, no wonder it's quiet."

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have endorsed this Program from the onset. It will continue to do so as a means of working with this segment of the community to promote a safe civil environment. To date, the R.C.M.P., in Yarmouth, can think of no better example of Community Based Policing than the All Saints Program. Clearly it demonstrates how a community identified a problem and successfully enacted the suitable and proven solution coupled with Police cooperation. This resulted in a successful conclusion.

D.D. Noel, Cst. R.C.M.P. Yarmouth Town Detachment, CP/VS Coordinator.

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