By Neil Dubord, Delta Police Department
Many people will recall with fondness the arrival of the Sears Holiday Catalogue, which came just in time to start developing a Christmas list. With great enthusiasm, children would pour through the book, circling their most wanted gifts in the hopes that mom and dad — and of course Santa — would take notice.
The announcement late last year that Sears was closing its doors for good brings back nostalgic thoughts for many, but for those under the age of 40, well, they simply can’t relate. I suspect at its basic level that is why Sears is now shutting down. As the media has been reporting, this 65-year-old company – a Canadian institution - did not keep pace with change. It was well acknowledged the store did not pay enough attention to the evolution of its customer base, and the need to keep up with emerging retail giants like Amazon and Walmart.
In the last decade we have seen other companies, such as Blockbuster or Kodak, also shut down as they struggled to adapt to a changing retail and consumer landscape. And because of that, these organizations went by the way of the metaphorical dinosaur.
Sears and the Delta Police are two vastly different organizations, but the importance of keeping up with change remains the same. Delta Police has a duty to the community to evolve with technological and demographic developments, and to look into the future and develop strategies to address potential upcoming changes successfully. To stay the same is to fall behind; we must always challenge ourselves to do better and be better. To do that, we have to listen to our community and pay attention to progress.
In 2017, Delta Police implemented the Delta Service Enhancement Plan. The plan is designed to improve accountability, visibility and relationships with the community. We do this by using technology to help police officers get out of their vehicles and into the community through the use of smartphones and mobile desktops. And with this mobility, police officers can respond more efficiently to the public’s needs.
In addition to changes at the front line, Delta Police will continue to work towards developing an overall service that is aligned with community expectation. This year we will implement online Police Information Checks, allowing citizens to apply for, and receive criminal record checks from home.
We also continue to expand our use of alternative forms of communication such as texting and social media, giving people additional options for how they want to connect with police. If you haven’t yet, please visit us online via Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. For Delta Police, technological development is not a core business function, but it is critical to our operations and service levels. We must therefore always be challenging ourselves to improve.
Policing is, and will always remain, a profession based on relationships. And how we deliver policing services to the community is not entirely ours to decide; it is based on public expectation and demand, with the ultimate goal of staying relevant and effective.
Neil Dubord is the chief constable of the Delta Police Department.