BARRIE POLICE BEING PROACTIVE WITH CHILDREN

YOUTH: Education Is Key

City police say education is key to stop students from heading into a
life of crime.

The Barrie police department's community services unit has officers,
dedicated to both elementary and secondary schools around the city,
whose jobs include steering kids down the right path.

"The objective is to get to know some of the students and get a feel
for what's going on (at the school)," Sgt. Peter Dewsnap said.

Some of the early warning signs, he said, could include cutting class
or acting out.

"The teachers spend a great deal of time with these kids, so they can
certainly see when things might be out of character for that person,"
Dewsnap said.

City police are involved with the Mobilize Barrie conference. Dewsnap
said it's a good launching pad into youth-crime issues.

"For Barrie, we're really looking at taking a proactive approach and
new ideas to prevent certain situations that have happened in other
cities," he said. "I wouldn't say we have a youth-gang problem, but
are there youth-gang members who live in the City of Barrie? Yes, there are.

"But we haven't really seen the different youth gangs formalize," the
sergeant added. "The idea of Mobilize Barrie is to come up with
strategies to prevent that from happening so it doesn't become an
issue here."

Barrie police are involved in students' lives almost from the time
they begin school.

There are eight officers devoted to city schools, both at the
elementary and secondary levels.

"At the elementary level, there's obviously a little more emphasis on
education," Dewsnap said, adding the VIP program (Values, Influences,
Peers) touches on drugs, gangs, bullying, Internet safety, youth and
the law.

"Starting at the elementary school level and talking to these kids,
you have to educate them on the consequences and making decisions,"
Dewsnap said. "Decisions you make now can affect you for the rest of
your life, even though you may not think that."

In high schools, it's a combination of enforcement and education.
Types of issues officers deal with most regularly at the high-school
level include assaults and drugs, most prominently marijuana. Harder
drugs, such as cocaine, haven't shown up.

But, despite the grade level, officers are there as a resource,
Dewsnap said.

"If a principal or a teacher sees that one of the kids at the school
is potentially heading down the wrong path, quite often one of our
officers will go and sit down and talk to the youth," he said.
"They'll want to try and find out why this is hap-p ening and whether
there's something we can do to head it off. The whole idea is we
really want to establish a relationship with the schools," Dewsnap
added. "It's to the point now where the administration staff at the
schools will call the officers directly on their cellphone if there's
an issue."