By Cecilia Nasmith/Today’s Northumberland
A new idea has become part of Cobourg Police Service operations, and it’s known as PINE.
Staff Sgt. Harold Wax reported on the Post Incident Neighbourhood Engagement initiative at Wednesday’s meeting of the Cobourg Police Service Board and how it’s deployed on both a pre-incident and post-incident basis.
Post-incident or reactive PINE is for communities impacted by unplanned events like serious crimes Pre-incident or proactve PINE precedes planned events like drug-warrant executions. It marks a change from the practice of responding to either event and then going on to something else.
The service is carried out by volunteer auxiliary police members, he noted, who deploy to provide a reassuring visible presence (on foot patrol and in marked police cars), engage in discussions and dispel misinformation.
They also provide education on crime prevention and increase community capacity to reduce crime through such initiatives as Lock It Or Lose It protection for cars and their contents, the Know Your Neighbour and Trespass Authority Agent programs and CPTED audits (Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design) – and provide whatever other relevant information that might be requested.
Proactive PINE is now a staple of operational plans, Wax said, and they’ve already had two such instances. Feedback from both has been extremely positive.
The conclusion of each incident will involve an end-of-duty report that will be reviewed, with the Cobourg Police Service determining if it should be released to the Neighbourhood Watch committee partners in the affected areas.
