After three years, the Windsor Police Service says a community outreach program for high school students is changing the way minorities view officers.
The latest class from the Police Ethnic and Cultural Exchange youth leadership program graduated in a ceremony at the Ontario Court of Justice Thursday night. Students apply to take part in an eight-week course displaying the different aspects of policing from a marine unit to a K-9 unit.
Sergeant Wren Dosant from the Community Service Branch says the program started three years ago when police services across Ontario realized their ranks did not reflect the cultural and ethnic diversity in the communities they served. Windsor's program is similar to one the Halton Regional Police Service has had in place the past 15 years. "Parents, even grandparents can see that policing in Canada is not what it is in perhaps their home countries," he says. "The building of relationships has started there and moved forward."
Since the program's implementation, Dosant says some community groups have requested presentations from the police.
Eventually, it's hoped programs like this will result in a more diversified police force. "We will not see any fruits of its labour specific to this program until maybe five, six, seven years down the road," says Dosant. "We do have a tracking system in place to see if any of these students will be coming to the Windsor Police Service or other services throughout Ontario."