Police academy recruits citizens

BY LAUREL MYERS

People are less likely to be victims of crime if they know how to protect themselves.

In keeping with this theory, the Greater Sudbury Police Service will be launching a crime prevention academy early next year. The goal is to educate the public and heighten their awareness of crime within the city, and how to avoid becoming a victim of it.

“What we want to do is to inform our community about crime prevention issues and identify specific people within our community, such as the community action networks,” said Deputy Chief Frank Elsner. “These individuals will assist in crime prevention. We’re hoping once the community action networks have been educated on this, they can go out and teach it on our behalf to get the message out.”

The academy will include modules that deal with home and property security, personal safety, money and fraud, traffic, dealing with common neighbourhood problems, and keeping your kids safe.

“It will involve the experts within our organization that will help facilitate this community driven initiative,” Elsner said. “We’re hoping this crime prevention academy will help us to get our community mobilized and work together a lot closer, hand in glove, on things that will affect them.”

The academy is free to the general public. It will be hosted in council chambers every Monday night for nine weeks, running for two hours each week. More information will be available in the second week of January.