Security professionals understand how the private sector can be a force multiplier when it comes to working with police on matters of public security. They understand the value of collaboration.
That sense of “mutual interest/mass benefit” is found in countless examples of community-based initiatives that focus on improving public safety.
Pixels for Pistols
Last month, for example, the Toronto Police ran their first “Pixels for Pistols” amnesty campaign. Gun owners received a new digital camera and lessons on how to use it from the Henry’s camera chain in exchange for handing in an operational gun.
“This is an initiative that, if we all commit to it, has the capacity to make the city a little safer,” Chief Bill Blair said at the campaign kickoff. “This is an opportunity to get rid of a weapon safely, without fear of being charged.”
Under terms of the innovative campaign, people who turned over operational rifles or shotguns received a Nikon Coolpix P60 plus a Henry’s School of Imaging gift card (valued at CDN$250). Those who turned over an operational handgun, machine gun, or assault rifle received a Nikon Coolpix S52 and two School of Imaging gift cards (valued at CDN$360).
The results, announced on July 12, showed that 485 firearms and 22,000 rounds of ammunition were handed in.
The guns were destroyed after police ensured they had not been used in the commission of a crime.
But just in case some over-eager residents thought otherwise, Toronto Police stressed time and again during the campaign that the public cannot bring guns into police stations or Henry’s locations.
That seems obvious, perhaps. Who would bring a gun to a police station? But clearly someone has in the past.
So this sort of messaging is all part of the security education dialogue that runs as an undercurrent to this campaign.
Other safe city initiatives
There are many other security collaboration examples of note in Canada.
In a large suburb to the west of Toronto, the Brampton Safe City Association is a network of citizens, businesses, schools, and community agencies working together with police, emergency services, government agencies, and others to make their community secure.
Their Safe City Association has been serving the local community since 1982, with a mandate to educate and engage citizens in safety.
On the east side of Toronto you’ll find the Safe City Oshawa Partnership, a diverse group of community stakeholders working together to maintain a sense of confidence in their neighbourhoods by supporting grass-roots safety strategies.
Established in 2010, the Partnership has a wide-ranging mandate to engage the community “in a discussion of community safety issues and the root causes of crime,” while building strategic partnerships and funding support for local security initiatives.
National umbrella, local impact
While programs like Pixels for Pistols and suburban safe city campaigns are planned and executed at the municipal level in Canada, they are generally aligned with the broad objectives of the federal national crime prevention strategy (NCPS).
Led by Public Safety Canada, NPCS is a multi-stakeholder approach to security collaboration that provides tools, knowledge, and support to community leaders across the country. Youth gangs are a particular focus of NPCS.
Earlier this year, they ran a program called Communities at Risk: Security Infrastructure Program that was designed to help communities at risk of hate-motivated crimes improve their security infrastructure.
Funding was made available to help with the costs of security infrastructure improvements for places of worship, provincially recognized educational institutions, and community centres in communities at risk.
Making certain communities safer pays dividends for other communities. It’s security leverage.
Need more collaboration
We’ll see much more of this sort of multi-party collaboration, especially as governments of all levels (and in almost all countries) struggle to match dwindling resources to public safety mandates.
In other words, security collaboration has a critical role in bridging that chasm as it expands. And by extension, these programs are improving the public’s security literacy at individual and collective levels.
I think those of us in the security industry have key roles in supporting community-based initiatives. And we can do that in at least two ways:
- Mentoring: Mentoring with local community organizations can increase public safety awareness and improve site-specific security measures. It can also attract new people to our industry at a time when we’re suffering from a skills shortage.
- Sponsorship: Putting our respective brands behind local initiatives adds weight to those campaigns. This is especially true when security leaders invest their own time and sweat equity into local projects. We can also increase employee engagement by supporting initiatives that are important to our staff.
In short, we can collaborate to protect.
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This is a good alternative to the regular gun buy backs that we see so often. I can’t say how interested I would be in getting a digital camera in exchange for a gun but programs like this do a lot to remove guns that might otherwise be sold under the table and I appreciate that.
Yes but cameras can make or give you a better picture of your target. Then only the gun can target towards the right spot easily.
@Johnathan Selin: Good and fair enough but how do you plan to monitor it ? It wont be that easy
Living in a country where gun ownership isn’t really much of a thing, unless you’re a farmer, I’m not that qualified to say, but I also wonder if a camera is something that people are after. Who looks at their gun and asks ‘Shooting that deer with my rifle was fun, but what I’d really love to do is shoot a beautiful portrait of him’?
@Robert Brown: True that is something which gives pleasure to the mind. Anyway the way you handle the equipment is the key. Anything can be used for good and bad both.
I don’t think you get too many hunters turning in guns during a buy back. Most often it is people who have inherited guns or bought them for self/home defense and had a change of heart. They don’t know enough about the guns to go out and sell them or barter with a gun dealer so the gun by backs are much easier for them and it avoids things like them selling to a stranger who probably can not buy one legally through a firearms dealer.
@Mike Clauss – I too feel its a good way of reducing the wepons public has, some of them might not be willing to exchange, but some of them would.
@manashi – that’s a good one, that’s the reason why we buy back their Guns so that they don’t get any chance of pulling the trigger on someone.
@Robert Brown – the need of a camera to a person who possessed a gud is questionable. But its atleast something for them.
@N De Silva – yes anything could be used fir both bad and good, but what bad things do you think of when you think of a camera. Well its certianly better than a gun.
@Mike Clauss – what do the do with the guns they buy back? Do they hand it over to the government?
Are there other ways to get rid of guns legally? Say, there’s no buy backs going on where I live, is there some kind of ‘dump’ that I take my gun to when I don’t want it anymore? Presumably you can’t just throw it in the bin in case it gets into the wrong hands?
Most police departments will let you have the guns removed from your home by officers but who wants to have the neighbors talking when a patrol car rolls up and spends an hour at your home? You can also sell them to authorized gun dealers but if it’s not licensed to you they typically can’t buy it from you as they have to do the same checks on a gun that the police department would do and that gets expensive for them.
safeNsane i feel that best way for removal of guns is definitely buy back. But I also think that where there is legal way people do not want to waste money they have spent in buying a gun illegally. What they will do is to sell it to that dealer who gives them more money and thats it, no checks and queries. At least that what I have witnessed here. I feel if buyback is offering good amount to those illegal gun keepers I think it will have more chance of motivating the people to hand it in.
Rob you got me thinking there. I am really surprised at not knowing any other way legally then buy back. I just thought of handing over my gun to a friend for few bucks and may be to a legal store with permit. But I think buy back will be the most secure and safe option.