After a year of assisting residents with preventing crime from happening on their properties, the MD of Bonnyville is continuing to grow their programming.
The Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) program is offered by the municipality at no charge, and gives residents some insight into what they can do to prevent crime on their property.
Initiated in April 2018, the CPTED has helped hundreds of locals with improving their security measures throughout the MD.
Director of public safety Chris Garner said although he didn’t have concrete numbers in terms of how many they’ve done, the department has been busy with at least two or more properties per week.
“We’ve done everything from farms to residences in hamlets, businesses to municipal buildings, and oil field sites,” he expressed.
Garner added, “What (CPTED) does, is we do an assessment of your property in order to give you various avenues to try and improve the property to make it more target-hardened against crime, but also to add features to the property to make it more user-friendly for valid users of the property, but also unfriendly to people there without permission or there for nefarious purposes.”
According to Garner, since starting the program last year, they’ve noticed two common issues.
The first is the lack of lighting.
“It’s very important because it makes the legitimate users of the space feel safe and that they can maneuver around it well with proper lighting, and people there for criminal purposes or illegitimate users of the space, the lighting makes them feel exposed,” explained Garner. “Other legitimate users of the area can also see when someone is there and they’re not supposed to be.”
Target hardening is also a common recommendation they have for residents.
Garner said not all of their suggestions are expensive. In some cases, something as simple as a longer screw in a door frame can make a difference.
“Quite often, the methods used to target-harden are pretty cheap, not expensive at all. We’re talking an item sometimes that’s only $15 or $20 can easily secure your door or window far better than the way it is now.”
There’s no cost to have an assessment complete, which is one of the reasons why Garner recommends the public take advantage.
“There’s no charge, it’s free, and it’s part of the service we’re providing. They don’t have to follow-up with any recommendations we make, they can just keep it in their back pocket for future reference, or just do a few of the recommendations, or them all,” stressed Garner. “It’s something they can take and consider. We can sometimes get a different perspective on their property than they get. They’re there all of the time, and they’re not always seeing things that are obvious to people that are fresh onto the property.”
As part of the CPTED, the MD has been hosting open houses throughout the municipality.
This is when they explain the assessments, offer safety tips, and get feedback from the public.
In some cases, Garner said there’s “really good” attendance, while in others, not so much.
“I think, as we do these various community halls around the MD, we find ones that are better at certain times of the year. We’ve only been working on this program for a year, so we’re learning what places to go when,” he noted.
In terms of feedback they’re hearing from the public, a lot of residents are expressing their concerns over rural crime.
Garner explained, “They want to be able to protect themselves and deal with their own concerns, they want to be empowered to look after their own property, and they want to be given the tools in order to be able to do that.”
That includes communication between residents and peace officers.
“We’ve been getting a lot of requests for people to be able to contact us directly through text messaging, where it’s a little more convenient for people to just shoot off a quick text. They also want to be able to receive alerts or messages from the municipality when things are going on, so they’re always in the know and aren’t hearing about something days later when they could have provided some helpful information about it at the time,” detailed Garner.
A newer aspect to the CPTED is vacant home checks.
Residents who are going away, whether it’s for the day, a weekend, a week, or more, can notify the public safety department and request an officer stop by their property daily.
Although they won’t go as far as feeding your cat, Garner said they will do a walk around of the property and check the doors.
“It’s an exterior check, they go and wiggle the doorknob and make sure everything looks good and then move on to the next one,” he expressed.
Garner continued, “We did get quite a few, but we want that information to get out there because I think there’s a lot more people that would sign up for it if they knew it was going on.”
