21st-century policing initiative to continue: Ewatski

A report on the 21st-century policing initiative in Western Division has revealed poor management by officers at all levels. However Deputy Police Commissioner in charge of operations, Jack Ewatski, is not giving up on the initiative that was launched 13 months ago.

A report dated April 1, 2012 questions why there has been inadequate management and why there has no no significant improvement in how the initiative is managed.

Two technical advisers, who were part of the initiative’s implementation process, conducted the evaluation.

Ewatski told the Guardian newspaper the project will continue because it is the future of the Police Service. “I would debate with anybody who said the previous model of service delivery is better and more efficient than this model,” he said.

“It’s a real struggle to have people embrace technology and to move away from paper-based systems,” Ewatski explained. “There are concerns that have been expressed at all levels of management and leadership within the division that need to be looked at.”

The evaluation considered the performance of individual officers, Ewatski said.

“We have statistics where we have been tracking the activities of all the officers in that division from simple things in terms of how many arrests they make, how many hours of patrol, how many stop-and-search forms that they fill out, how many traffic tickets they issue, how many hours they spend in court, and how often they are sick or absent, in very great detail,” he stated.

He said while the majority of officers are performing at a good or satisfactory level there are some who have been doing "very little".

Ewatski stated that when the initiative was launched in the Western Division last year there was a small group of officers in Western Division, who intended to derail the initiative and to create mischief.

“There are a small group of officers within that division who right from day one have made it clear that they are not happy with this initiative and they have done and said things both subtly and overtly to try to derail that process,” he said.

The Police Service Social and Welfare Association has been highly critical of the project and is making efforts to use legal means to stop it.

One of their complaints is the new shift arrangements that require officers to work four 12-hour days to be followed by four days off. It's a common practice in police operations in Canada but local officers have called it oppressive.

Ewatski also identified a problem with the whole police service. “If we are going to be effective, if we are going to increase public confidence, we need to perform and we need to hold people accountable for non-performance,” he said.