Lethbridge police ask residents for feedback and community policing priorities
Lucie Edwardson | CBC News | Posted: February 10, 2018 1:30 PM | Last Updated: February 10, 2018
Researchers at Lethbridge College will be conducting a phone survey on behalf of the service until Thursday
The Lethbridge Police Service (LPS) want residents and local stakeholders to tell them what they think about how the service does business and how it spends taxpayer money.
The service began surveying people over the phone on Saturday in order to determine community priorities.
Chief Rob Davis said that as LPS gears up for their upcoming budget cycle talks in the fall, they want the community to weigh in on what they're doing — and what they should be doing.
"We have a number of strategies that we want to implement into the city, but it's important we have the community and stakeholder feedback to help us prioritize," he said. " We may think something's priority one, whereas citizens feel item three might be priority one."
Davis says residents will be asked to rank previous police priorities.
"So, would that be traffic enforcement, say drug enforcement, dealing with mid-level crimes, foot patrol," he said.
Residents will also be asked how safe they feel in their communities, parks and other public spaces, and whether that feeling changes from day to night.
Farin Ellis — a researcher and political scientist with Lethbridge College — is heading the process.
He anticipates they'll interview more than a thousand people between now and next Thursday.
"The City of Lethbridge, when they conduct their satisfaction survey, [they hire] Ipsos-Reid to conduct 400 interviews, so we go well beyond that," he said. "These are extremely robust samples."
Farrin says the data will be analyzed and made public within a month of completion.
- MORE ALBERTA NEWS | Nathan Gervais arrested overseas, returned to Canada to face 1st-degree murder charge
- MORE ALBERTA NEWS | Extreme cold increases demand for Calgary homeless services