PENHOLD – After months of planning, the Penhold Community Safety and Crime Awareness Committee (PCSCAC) is moving forward.
The committee recently made a presentation to Penhold council where they spoke about their objectives and asked council for assistance with a small budget and a web page to help the committee promote crime prevention and improve community safety.
“It’s to educate people on crime prevention and what they can do to make themselves (and their properties) safer from crime,” said Sharolyn Sanchez, committee member and Penhold council member. “We want to share this information with the community.”
The committee was created shortly after the last municipal election and took several months to establish, noted Sanchez. The committee now includes several members from Penhold and the surrounding area.
In recent months the committee developed a plan of action. That plan includes educating residents about crime prevention and engaging them to participate in crime prevention measures.
“We did a survey (in 2018) to get a sense of where people were at in their knowledge of crime prevention and what they knew about how to report crime,” said Sanchez, noting the survey results helped the committee create that plan and the direction it needed to take.
Sanchez said the way crime is committed these days is concerning.
“It’s not that crime has become more frequent as much as crime has become more violent and more blatant,” said Sanchez. “People don’t care they just walk into your property. They don’t see any deterrent from just coming in and taking your stuff.
“It’s a scarier crime world out there,” she added.
The crime awareness committee is now moving forward with its next steps.
“One of our first things to do is hold a town hall,” said Sanchez. “We have booked the Memorial Hall for March 21, 2020. We are going to have a pancake breakfast to start (the event) followed by a presentation.”
Sanchez said now that the committee has been created, they hope to see local residents involved in helping keep Penhold a safer community.
“The fear that this crime (wave) is creating is changing people's lives and how they live their lives. It’s changing our society,” said Sanchez. “We need to advocate to the federal lawmakers to take property crime more seriously. It impacts far more than just having your stuff stolen.”
For more information contact the committee at [email protected]
