The Abbotsford Police Department (APD) wants to know how it’s doing.
The department is conducting its second citizens’ survey – the first was in 2010 – to gauge how the public feels about policing in the city.
The survey is being conducted by the University of the Fraser Valley’s School of Criminology and Justice Centre, and will be issued to 2,400 households at a cost of $5,400.
APD Const. Ian MacDonald said residents will begin receiving the survey this week in the mail, and they are asked to complete them by the third week of this month.
It will then take several weeks to compile the results.
MacDonald said many of the questions will be similar to those from 2010, when residents were asked to note their major areas of concern about crime in the city and rate their satisfaction with the APD.
But this year the survey will ask more specific questions about unreported crime, and some of the surveys will be sent in Punjabi to homes of South Asian background and where English is not the first language.
“We want to try to reach out to other parts of the community (that weren’t addressed in 2010),” MacDonald said.
He said results from the anonymous survey will be compared to the one from two years ago, helping to identify areas that need improvement or the things that police are doing right in the public’s eye.
In 2010, the survey was issued to just over 1,100 residents, and 93 per cent indicated overall satisfaction with the APD.
MacDonald said police are open to hearing whatever the public has to say.
“We do serve the citizens, and it’s important for us to know how they feel about what we’re doing.”
