Mountain View County held a training session on crime prevention through environmental design on Nov. 19 at the county office.
The purpose of the workshop, which was free to residents, was to help farm and acreage owners be more resilient to property crime in rural areas.
Mark Kay, vice-president of the Alberta Community Crime Prevention Association (ACCPA), was the main presenter at the session.
"ACCPA is a volunteer executive and board and our mandate is to deliver education on crime prevention and community safety throughout the province," Kay told the Gazette. "I was asked to come out and deliver the presentation on crime prevention through environmental design."
Kay talked about a number of different areas and levels of community safety from crime prevention through social development, to techniques and strategies that urban engineers and planners can use in promoting community safety.
He also talked about some of the strategies that property developers and homeowners can use to safeguard their properties.
"At a community-wide level, probably one of the strongest things we promote for crime prevention is crime prevention through social development," he said. "A lot of that means residents working together, collaborating with Mountain View County, collaborating with RCMP, just working together in groups, community groups like Citizens on Patrol, Rural Crime Watch, meeting regularly, collaborating, taking about different ways that communities can support each other."
Kay said it's also important to engage youth in the community.
"It's so important for youth to have positive activities to become involved in such as 4-H Club, sports teams, anything like that," he said. "That's really where crime prevention starts. If we can steer youth on a positive direction in life, we'll reap the benefits of that 15 to 20 years down the road."
Another tip Kay offered was more rural residents to have their legal land description beside their landline.
"So if you have to call police or fire you're able to give them that legal land description," he said. "In terms of the 9-1-1 system they'll be able to locate farms and acreages based on the legal land description."
