Introducing the Woodstock Police Community Response Unit

Tuesday, 12 January 2021 05:36

The Woodstock Police Service is looking to identify problem areas in the Friendly City.

WOODSTOCK - The Woodstock Police Community Response Unit has been tasked with helping to identify high areas of crime in the City.

The team consists of a sergeant and two constables who will actively be working alongside the other Woodstock Police Service units.

Woodstock Police Chief Daryl Longworth says they have a mandate to identify problems in the community.

"The Community Response Unit is primarily there to identify problems in the community, find out and identify what the root causes of those problems might be and then work with the community to develop viable solutions. Whether that requires arrests to disrupt it or maybe putting individuals with property organizations and community partners who are better suited to assist them."

The CRU was created after getting approval in the Police budget for 2020 to hire additional officers. Longworth says the City is experiencing a rise in thefts and B&E's and part of this unit's job will be to focus on prevention.

"Yes we have seen increases in some crime in the City and a lot of it is, for a lack of a better term, that petty crime, theft of bikes, vehicle entries, those kind of things. The CRU is partially in response to that but we also recognized that we need to be more proactive."

Longworth says they hope to develop those crime prevention strategies with this unit.

"We hope to look at those prolific offenders that we seem to be arrested over and over again, we know that when it comes to break and enters, when it comes to robberies, it is a small group of people that are committing a major amount of those crimes. If we can take a few of these people out, if we can target those prolific offenders, go after them and put them in custody. We see, the results immediately where we see our break and enter rates go down immediately following an arrest of 1 or 2 people that are probably committing a good 40 to 50 percent of those break and enters."

Last week the team assisted with the traffic unit, which led to 12 tickets being issued.

They also located and arrested a woman on Friday, who had an outstanding warrant in relation to a manslaughter in Woodstock in 2020.