• The Community Safety Officer program is a pilot program that was created to test the viability of an unarmed member of the RCMP, hired for and dedicated specific to a community’s needs. They are key personnel that enhance the work of the regular police officer.

• This nation wide initiative is the result of consultation between the RCMP and its community clients. The clients identified a need for an expanded continuum of police resources to better address local concerns, and further develop police /community contact.

• In our community, we have three community safety officers. They have been active since July of 2008. Two of the officers are deployed in the Youth Resource unit, and the third is with the downtown foot beat, otherwise known as the Community response team (CRT).

• The Community safety officers have been very active in engaging community partners downtown Maple Ridge, as well as within the school setting, doing school talks, and early intervention and crime prevention programming.

There has been excellent feedback from the community and the RCMP detachment on the program.

Some highlights:

• Partnered with the regular member, youth officers with bike patrol and foot patrols over the summer, targeting areas where youth congregate, resulting in a decrease of vandalism

• Foot patrols in the downtown core, focusing on high visibility

• Youth officer CSO members give presentations on Internet safety, DARE, cyber-bullying, Law, drinking and driving, Halloween safety, to name a few

The SAFE plan

• CSO member is the anti-graffiti coordinator for the detachment

• CSO downtown foot beat member is active with the business improvement association, Senior’s liaison, teen resource network, and the Crisis intervention team