Provincial programs put in place a year ago are starting to help the RCMP in the battle against rural crime.

High River RCMP Sergeant Ryan Dlin says he is very happy with how a few changes are making big differences for the officers on the force.

He says investigations have gone down.

"I am a big fan of what's been going on. The extra attention to the rural area is great and I think it is showing that it is having an effect because the stats are going down."

There are a couple of new units to help free-up police from paperwork.

"When we are dispatched to the more routine calls like a suspicious person, the members will attend and do the investigation and in previous times they would have to go back to the office, log onto the computer and write the file up and do all the data entry on the file."

Dlin says now they call a special 24 hour number and leave all the information for someone else to do the data entry, which is a great time saver.

He says another time saver is the Call Back Unit.

They take the calls that don't require a police officer to attend the scene, like for a suspicious vehicle but there is no description or licence plate. They take in all the information and pass it on the RCMP.

The information is noted and passed onto the department.

Another step that is helping in the fight against rural crime is how neighbours are helping each other and getting lots of information to the police.

"We are hearing about suspicious vehicles not from just one person but from three or four people."

It helps when everyone can pool together their information to come up with enough to help police track suspects down.

"So the rural communities are talking more which is fantastic."

 

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