Estevan residents must be pretty satisfied with the level of protection offered by the Estevan Police Service.
According to a survey carried out by the University of Regina, 88.9 per cent of respondents were satisfied or very satisfied with the level of service offered by the EPS. Also, 93.2 per cent said they felt the EPS had a visible presence in the community.
The document has a whole host of other information and data that reflects what the public thinks. And while it is a fairly small sample size at about 250 people, it’s still large enough for a community the size of Estevan to give people more than just a glimpse of what people think of our municipal policing force.
There’s also a long list of other questions that were posed to the public through this survey that range from trust to professionalism to response times.
You can argue that there are better things that could be done with taxpayer dollars, but when you consider the University of Regina helped pick up the tab on this, it’s not quite such a bad idea. If the EPS is going to be responsible for the full cost of this initiative in the future, then hopefully, it will happen only once every few years.
Still, it’s good for the EPS to know where the public views its strengths and weaknesses, and for the public to know where it views the local police’s strengths and weaknesses.
It’s better to have this data, than to base opinions and evaluations on social media and coffee row.
Sure there are things that we wish the police would do differently. We wish they would spend more time in a certain areas. (Additional patrols on Wellock Road a few years ago would be a good example of this). We wish there was more enforcement for speeding, especially in residential areas and restricted speed zones, such as playgrounds and schools.
Other people wish that the EPS would have priorities more in-tune with their own ideas for policing.
You’ll have those who felt they were wronged by police who just won’t be happy with the police. And there will be others who will accuse the EPS of having a double-standard, enforcing the laws for some but being lax for others. (We know of a recent fundraiser that the EPS shut down that has a gripe with police).
There were also concerns with call times in this survey, with only 57.6 per cent of people saying the EPS responded to calls in a prompt fashion.
Some people will tell you that the police in this city are overpaid, or that there are too many officers in Estevan. This city currently has 26, with 16 in patrols and 10 for the dedicated units such as the Drug Intelligence Unit. Even though four of Estevan’s officers are funded through Saskatchewan Government Insurance, some believe that we could stand to lose a few officers.
Maybe you wish they didn’t have traffic enforcement blitzes, or you wish they didn’t hand out so many tickets, or that they didn’t give out so many warnings.
The percentage of satisfied residents came in a little higher than you might expect, but not that much higher.
The EPS is doing a pretty good job. They’re out in the community and engaging with the public. They’re doing a good job of nabbing people for such charges as impaired driving and drugs.
Events like the police open house on Saturday give people reason to think the EPS members are approachable.
And they’re still pretty busy. The EPS has not seen a significant decline in call volume that you might have expected since the price of oil crashed in 2014.
Last month they reportedly had 1,200 calls, making it one of the busiest months they have had in a while. (And that spike in calls wasn’t just due to the enforcement blitz happening early in the month).
Sure there are areas that could use improvement, but most people will tell you they’re happy with the EPS, and they still feel safe living and working in Estevan.
