Lambton College criminal justice students to get hands-on experience

A new partnership will give Sarnia police extra hands to probe high-volume, less serious crimes and Lambton College students hands-on experience, officials say.

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The partnership will create a community crime unit with a city police officer, Const. Uriah Dodge, supervising four college criminal justice students, to probe crimes, such as shoplifting and bike thefts.

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“We have a long-standing, collaborative relationship with the Sarnia police and we’re excited to be formalizing it,” college senior vice-president Mary Vaughan said Wednesday at the Sarnia campus.

Police Chief Derek Davis said the new unit grew out of conversations that began about a year ago with senior college administrators.

“These are high-volume, less serious crimes that when we have other demands, we have a hard time getting to,” Davis said.

“We do get to them but sometimes it takes a long time,” he said. “We wanted to fill that gap.”

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Students in the unit will collect statements and evidence, and use surveillance photos to identify suspects, but have “no contact with suspects directly,” Davis said.

That will be handled by police officers, but “everything right up until that point, the students will have a hand in,” he said.

“Everything the students are going to do, under the supervision of that officer, if we are successful in building a case, we intend to appropriately prosecute,” Davis said.

Davis said he expects the students will spend “a good 20 hours a week” working with the unit.

Davis said he’s not aware of other police services offering anything like this new program.

“This is a startup,” Davis said. “We’re going to see how it goes and fix things as they happen and capitalize on what works well.”

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So far this year, reports of property damage in the community are up 14 per cent, shoplifting is up 42 per cent and theft is up 20 per cent, he said.

“We have serious concerns with the volume of minor crime,” Davis said.

Sarnia police have been looking “to better address those high-volume, less serious but not less important crimes, but we have to do it in a financially responsible and efficient way,” he said.

“This, in our view, is an incredible experience from a learning perspective for students,” Davis said. “It’s an incredible experience for us as a police organization to partner with a college such as Lambton.”

“I think we’ve struck something worthwhile here,” Davis said.

Being part of the unit is expected to be “an incredible work-integrated learning opportunity for our criminal justice students,” Vaughan said. “At Lambton College, we firmly believe that the best way to learn to do a job is actually by doing the job.”

Maddy Bishop, a second-year border services program student and graduate of the college’s police foundations program, said she feels fortunate to be in the initial group of students selected for the unit.

“I know and believe it will be a great way to be successful in this career,” she said.

“I cannot wait to begin my placement.”

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