Police Chief Norm Hansen will officially retire this week after spending the past 37 years with the Sarnia Police Service.
He joined the service in 1985 and was named chief of police in 2018. At the beginning of the year, Hansen announced his intention to officially retire on June 1.
Hansen said he has no immediate plans for how to spend his retirement but he does plan to do some travelling with his wife and spend the summer outdoors.
During his time with the police service, Hansen said there have been a lot of changes.
"I policed before cell phones," he laughed.
But on a more serious note, Hansen said notable changes have been made in regards to policing and the judicial system.
"The demands on our young officers as far as dealing with mental health and addiction issues, the scrutiny that they're under, social media... those are the biggest changes I think," Hansen said. "Also, there seems to be a lessening of consequences for criminals. We've talked about the revolving door system before and it seems like that has gotten worse in the last few years."
Hansen had many conversations with colleagues during his last full week on the job and said he is happy to be leaving on a good note.
"Sarnia should be very proud of their police service. We have excellent people here in both the civilian side and the sworn side," he said. "Our specialty services are great and uniform patrol. We have a lot of excellent young officers out there. I'm very satisfied to leave it in other people's hands now."