Justice Is Served

The public and the police: a symbiotic intelligence gathering relationship

David Schroder

In 2005, Sgt. Brodeur was tasked with cleaning up drug houses in Edmonton. By aligning with agencies and interested parties, Brodeur cleaned up six houses in one month. Building on this success, he created the Report a Drug House (RADH) program. Within 10 months, the operation had received 186 reports and closed 162 of those complaints.

Interestingly, one of the interested parties associated with Brodeur in the early stages of RADH was Dave Schroder in his capacity as chapter leader of the Edmonton Guardian Angels. Brodeur met with Schroder to discuss the possibility of a collaborative effort. He gave Schroder some business cards to pass out to the people on the street. “It was so refreshing to have somebody who was so open to having a positive impact in the community,” says Schroder.

Although Brodeur has since moved onto other projects, the RADH program continues to run successfully under the leadership of Sgt. Daryl Mahoney. What makes the program so effective is the symbiotic relationship between public participation and police action. “We are a witness driven program. If the community didn’t use us we wouldn’t exist to be able to help them,” says Mahoney.

Mahoney describes RADH as a “crime type specific program targeting drug grow and drug sale operations. We saw a two percent growth in the number of calls from last year to this year with 134 calls to our hotline,” says Mahoney, “we concluded 71 files this year either through warrant, arrest, eviction of the problem, or concluding drug activity had ended.”

There is a resounding opinion among members of the public and private sector that calls for a more integrative and collaborative approach to crime prevention. Recent trends in law enforcement practices are beginning to mirror this sentiment in philosophy and strategic approach.

“There is the traditional enforcement tool for fighting crime but if that is the only tool in your tool box, it really limits your response to any given problem” says Mahoney. “With education, information sharing, resource sharing, retraining/re-education, rehabilitation you have significantly many more tools to use to permanently fix an issue.”

Sgt. Mahoney “wholeheartedly agrees” that there is a need for collaborative initiatives. “Crime reduction is concerning yourself with all aspects of an issue,” says Mahoney, “the individual, neighbourhood, city, global issues, and trends need to be addressed and we all have a part to play and a piece of the puzzle.”

The big picture

It would certainly be simpler to lock offenders up and throw away the key, but this only solves the problem halfway. If we insist on putting up jails rather than addressing the conditions that lead to criminal activity, eventually, we will run out of room to build.

Gradually, communities are evolving away from a segmented structure of isolated parts. The most successful examples of crime reduction involve individual citizens who have discovered a way to reach out across the divide and pull together elements of the private, public, and government sectors. Maybe what Burke really meant was that there is, within each of us, the capacity to impact what affects us.

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Caitlin McLachlan is a freelance writer/photographer whose passions include the environment, culture, serendipitous animal rescue and the mysterious unraveling of a life lived adventurously.

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Sources:

– The Canadian Council on Social Development
– The Edmonton Guardian Angels
– The Alliance of Guardian Angels
– Martyshuk Housing
– Edmonton Police Services, Report a Drug House program