Crime may be down but police activity is up in Wellington County.
That’s the message delivered by Inspector Scott Lawson, detachment commander, during an OPP Now and In the Future presentation delivered to Wellington County council April 30.
“Crime is on a decline but our workloads are not decreasing,” said Lawson, adding that adapting to emerging trends and changing technology challenges police agencies in their role of protecting and serving the public.
“Technological advances make our investigations extremely complex,” said Lawson.
He explained police today must be able to follow leads through social media as well as traditional channels and utilize “black box” technology in modern vehicles for collision investigations.
He noted the court system now expects police to provide evidence based on current technology and “victims of crime are certainly asking more of us and they deserve for us to give them everything that we can.
“Technologically we must keep up and we will keep up, but I know it’s a significant cost,” Lawson stated.
Increasing awareness of the role mental health and addiction issues play in police work is among the trends local OPP are addressing, the inspector explained.
“We are all challenged recently, both provincially and in Wellington County, by the emergence of mental health and addiction issues,” he said, noting local OPP are averaging three mental-health/addiction related calls per shift.
“It a huge burgeoning concern for us,” Lawson said. “It’s a complicating factor as it’s increasing our workload significantly in terms of how we conduct our investigations.”
Lawson pointed to the recent launch of an Integrated Mobile Police and Crisis Team (IMPACT) as one way police are dealing with the challenge. The program allows crisis workers from the Canadian Mental Health Association to work alongside OPP officers when dealing with calls involving addictions and mental health issues.
The potential for incidents of domestic terrorism is another new area local police must be prepared to deal with, said Lawson.
“The world is changing and Wellington County is no different … We have to be mindful of what is happing in terms of terrorism issues.”
On the flip side, Lawson noted technology and research are allowing police to work more pro-actively, shifting focus to a “predictive” approach and allowing them to “be in the right place at the right time with the right resources dealing with the right issues.”
Police are also working to increase their presence in local recreational areas in order to prevent crime, said Lawson.
“We can’t shy away from our trails and waterways. We set an all-time record for patrols on our trails for snowmobiles this past winter,” he said.
“If they don’t think we’re out there, then bad things will happen.”
Police technology
While technology is adding to the police workload in some areas, it’s also helping streamline it in others, said Lawson.
He noted police no longer use pen and paper to record information at collision scenes and cruisers are equipped with tablet computers.
“All data is recorded electronically and reported to the MTO in this fashion,” he said.
Across the province, said Lawson, the OPP are responding to today’s challenges by applying concepts such as:
– “borderless policing,” with GPS tracking allowing dispatchers to send the closest officers to crime scenes regardless of detachment connections;
– online citizen reporting of minor crimes; and
– UAV/drone capabilities and body cameras.
Camera-equipped drones are already providing police aerial crime scene mapping capabilities, Lawson noted.
Body cameras, while potentially useful “present significant privacy issues” that will have to be dealt with before the technology becomes commonplace.
In the immediate future, Lawon said Wellington OPP will be deployed to assist with the Pan Am games this summer at venues in Halton region and Hamilton, while Lawson himself will be utilized as an operations chief during the games.
The 2016 International Plowing Match south of Harriston is anther event that will require a major manpower deployment from local police.
“We have been embedded in this for a long time and are well down the road in terms of planning,” Lawson noted.
Warden George Bridge said council and citizens “are proud of our police service,” which is “so well-respected in the OPP community.”
While there are costs to providing first-rate policing, “you are rewarded at the end of the day because not only do you have a safe community but your calls go down and so your costs go down,” said Bridge.
