Here’s How Peel Police Officers Are Engaging With Brampton’s Youth

Violence can affect any one of us, and unfortunately, that includes the youth of Brampton.

Violence can affect any one of us, and unfortunately, that includes the youth of Brampton. To help reduce violence in the youth community, Peel Police have numerous programs to help get kids to pick a better path in life.

Here are some initiatives Peel Regional Police Officers have to help youth across the region.

Youth in Policing Initiative

Since 2009, Peel Regional Police has worked in partnership with the Ministry of Children and Youth Services to create the Youth in Policing Initiative. It provides a special eight-week summer employment opportunity for youth in Brampton (and throughout the Peel Region).

The initiative focuses on diverse youth between the ages of 15 and 18 years old, who reside in priority identified neighbourhoods within the region. Twenty students have an opportunity to work alongside officers and civilian employees of the PRP services.

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Peel Police say this will give young people an opportunity to develop job skills while fostering positive partnerships with law enforcement.

Students must be enrolled in school and have no pending criminal charges. They also must not have participated in the program before.

This year’s program runs from July 2 to August 22.

Youth Advisory Committee

The Youth Advisory Committee was first created in 2016. The committee’s goal is to support and ensure community safety with engagement between the organization and the young people of the community.

School Resource Officer

The School Resource Officer (SRO) creates a safe learning environment at high schools throughout the region. Officers are trained to use a proactive style of policing and interact with students in a non-enforcement manner on a regular basis.

Every high school has an SRO which helps to build positive relationships between youth and law enforcement.

Positive Ticketing for Youth: Operation Freeze/Heat

Operation Freeze and Operation Heat is a partnership between Peel Police and Circle K Convenience Stores that encourages youth to learn that doing the right thing is ‘cool’ (pun intended).

Positive ticketing helps create positive interactions between youth and officers. These ‘tickets’ are actually coupons, given out as a reward for doing things like wearing bicycle helmets, doing good deeds and following school crossing rules.

Officers can also use them as icebreakers to start a conversation with youth in their patrol areas.

The coupons are for a free beverage at all participating Circle K Convenience stores across Ontario.

In the Peel Region, officers have issued over 65,000 positive tickets.

You can learn more about the Peel Police Youth Programs here.

Photo Courtesy of the Peel Region Police Website