'About making things better': Strategic plan aims to improve Kingston Police's work
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The Kingston Police Services Board chair hopes a strategic plan the board is in the process of writing will ensure accountability from the force.
Jarrod Stearns said the new plan will enable the board to track Kingston Police’s progress on certain issues.
“It is going to be obvious if things are getting better or not,” Stearns said. “For us to look at the end of the year and say, ‘OK, is this concern better?’
“As long as it is a problem pertaining to police, we can ask: What is being worked on? What are the solutions? How is it getting better? And we’re able to do a report card, and I don’t think we were able to with past strategic plans.”
The goal is to make policing better for the community, Stearns explained.
“Not that they’re bad right now, but governance is about making things better,” Stearns said. “And we’re actually doing something. We’re working on something and we’re asking the questions.”
The force last week released an online community survey with questions assembled by Kingston Police Chief Antje McNeely.
The survey asked about how safe the resident believes the city of Kingston is, how safe their neighbourhood is, it asks what the resident thinks should be a focus of police, what would make them feel better, and then a little about the resident’s demographics.
Stearns said that, in the past, the chief of police has written the strategic plan because the board was often too inexperienced. This meant the plans were written from only the chief’s viewpoint and based on their day-to-day workings. This time around, the board is taking the reins and McNeely will be providing input.
“Let’s bring the community into this because that’s really who the board is governing for, not for the police,” Stearns said. “I don’t think that’s happened before, quite honestly, and just from the way we’re doing it, I am confident when I say that. I’m not saying it was bad before; I’m just saying it is different.”
To write the plan, the board will be using the answers from the community survey, but it will also be reaching out to community partners. On Monday, members of the board sat down with the youth at Kingston Youth Service’s One Roof. Stearns said he was blown away.
“(What they said) was from the heart, well thought out,” Stearns said. “I was looking forward to it because I thought they were going to do that to us, and they did. They just blew us away with the thought they put into it.”
Once the board speaks to the required community groups and organizations — school boards, anti-violence co-ordinators, those who serve vulnerable populations and Indigenous leaders — it will take all of the information back to two consultants for the next steps. Stearns said the board has yet to decide whether this will be the plan for the next three or five years.
Stearns hopes the plan may address how police are used when working with the vulnerable, homeless population. He pointed to the example of the city evicting that population from public parks. He said that if anything goes wrong or if the person being evicted resists moving, the police are usually brought in.
“There has to be a plan. The police can’t be the bad guys all the time,” Stearns said. “That wasn’t the role of the police. The role of the police was never meant to be to deal with mentally ill people and find solutions at that moment in time. That’s not what they’re trained for. …
“There’s a lot being asked of police services that I’m not so sure should be left on their plate. But if we don’t talk about it, how are we going to make it better? How is there going to be change?”
To participate in the online survey, visit www.kingstonpolice.ca, and select the link under the Spotlight section.