Calgary Police Chief Roger Chaffin defends his force amid poor survey results

Calgary Police Chief Roger Chaffin says a recent poll giving his force only a 39 per cent approval rating is something he’s taking very seriously.

Chaffin spoke with reporters at the Marriott Hotel in response to a Mainstreet poll done for Postmedia.

“The poll that you read in the paper this morning is something that we do pay attention to, as you know the service and the Commission commissions its own polls year in and year out so we do follow them very closely,” he said. “So the poll that you saw is not one that we would looked at at the Commission and I do take it seriously, I look at the messaging in there which is relatively consistent, I would take some umbrage to the extent of which that there is a belief that our members have lost that much confidence in the public.”

The top cop says his members have been working constantly in what’s become a rough environment these past few years due to the amount of crime, disorder in the community and their own economic pressures.

He believes globalization issues in police and “trust in confidence” in policing is everywhere and some of it has found its way into the city.

“You’re going to see when the numbers come out in the Police Commission survey, a very different look at the same issues,” said Chaffin.

Chaffin was referring to a survey that puts their approval rating instead in the nineties.

“People are getting concerned, I’m being very up front about the things that are going wrong with policing and what we’re doing about it and making sure we have full transparency and accountability, those things tend to erode in the early days of ‘trust in confidence’, we’re hoping over time as we work with the community, they’ll see that is the sign of a mature agency, trying to be open and upfront as we can on issues in policing.”

He tends to believe the latter poll because he knows the methodology but that doesn’t mean he’s ignoring what he saw from Mainstreet.

“I think Calgary is being served by a professional, dedicated service that goes to tens of thousands of calls a month.”

“Without that survey, I still believe public demands heighten public trust, they want to know we’re doing all we can to elevate the role of policing in a modern community, that’s throughout North America right now and we’re not immune to it here.”

Chaffin dismissed claims that they might have a public image or a perception problem.

“We’re exhausting our ability in doing everything we can but that doesn’t make us immune to the idea that we have to keep improving and doing better.”

He also didn’t want to draw a line between the new numbers and the recent cases of misconduct or allegations of “abuse of force”, many of which are being dealt with by ASIRT.

“Everything impacts public perception, it’s my job to make sure we’re able to elevate the discussion.”

The police chief has been a long-time advocate for body-worn cameras and getting them rolled out or deployed across their front-lines.

The poll gives the Calgary Police Service the weakest stamp of approval of any city in Canada, including Saskatoon, Toronto and Winnipeg.