By Tamam Ahmed Jama
On foot, in a car, on bike, across the road, at the corner store — Const. Tim Senack is all over Centretown. He has spent 18 years in uniform as a front-line officer, and he says the new district policing will allow him to do his job better.
“In the system that was in place before, I wouldn’t be going to (community) meetings and I wouldn’t be relating to people as much. I’d be finishing with one call and going on to the next,” says Senack.
Under the new district policing, Senack is not dispatched across the city. He’s a neighbourhood officer, serving district 24, including Centretown. He says this is an opportunity for him to get to know the people in his area and develop better relations with them.
“I just say, ‘Hello’ to everybody on the street and start talking to them about everything,” Senack says. “And then they become comfortable with you and start relating things to you, whereas before you only noticed a cop going by in a car and you never got to stop and talk to him.”
The Ottawa-Carleton regional police service launched a community-based policing initiative in January. The move is in response to complaints about the police losing touch with the public and their ineffectiveness in dealing with neighbourhood crime.
Staff Sgt. Tyrus Cameron says with district policing, police officers will be proactive and will take a preventive approach to fighting crime. He says the police can no longer afford to work in isolation and the success of the initiative will depend on the level of public involvement and co-operation the police will receive.
“We have the expertise, but frankly, the police don’t have all the answers,” Cameron says. “And we can’t be effective without the help of the community.”
One aspect of the new style is problem-oriented policing where officers have to identify problems in their assigned areas and come up with solutions. Cameron says this gives front-line officers the opportunity to work closer with communities they serve and focus on problem-solving at the neighbourhood level.
Dan Marshall, a bartender at Centretown Pub, says he likes the partnership idea.
“The police do their job well, but I think they can do a lot better with the public’s help,” he says.
Marshall says a lot of crimes go unreported since the police often cannot know all that happens in the communities, and a true partnership between the police and the community is important for prevention and fighting crime effectively.
As a resident who also works in the Centretown area, Dawn Densmore has particular concerns. She is a daycare worker at Centretown Parents Daycare Inc. on James St., and a mother of two herself. She complains of prevalence and increase of youth violence, prostitution and drugs in her area.
She says she hopes the district policing will be more effective in resolving these problems.
She says she likes to see presence of more police officers working in partnership with the community to reduce the incidence of crime in her neighbourhood.
Densmore agrees with Marshall that community input and support are essential for the effectiveness of the police.
She says creating safer neighbourhoods “will take a strong partnership between the police and the community. The new initiative is a much needed positive step in the direction.”
Cameron says the decentralized structure of district policing makes the police more responsive to the specific needs of different neighbourhoods and helps build closer ties between the public and the police.
He says interaction with the community is crucial for this type of policing and officers are actually encouraged to get to know the members of the community.
Senack says being in touch with the community allows him to observe patterns and intervene at an early stage.