A variety of careers available within Regina Police Service

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The Regina Police Service (RPS) would like to increase the number of Aboriginal people it employs, both as police officers and within its civilian workforce.

Sgt. Lance Dudar is a recruiting officer with the RPS. He said that, given all of the negative press police departments across the country have been getting with regard to their dealings with Aboriginal people, the time is ripe for young Aboriginal people to get into policing.

"I think the more First Nations people we have here, the more Aboriginal or Metis people that we have here, the better off we're going to be because they will police themselves. They will police the police, so to speak. It's hard for people to do things when your partner is one of the people that it may be happening to. So I think it's a real positive. I think it's certainly the way to go."

The RPS is doing a lot of things to try to reach out to the Aboriginal community, both to create a better understanding of the police service and to encourage more Aboriginal people to consider careers with the service. The RPS has a cultural relations section that does a lot of outreach with the Aboriginal community and other cultural communities, and is in the process of putting together a program aimed at First Nation people living in the Treaty 4 area that the RPS hopes to run in May.

"It's called Treaty 4 Citizens Police Academy," said Dudar. "An 11-week program condensed into a two-week program, basically giving people a better understanding of what our organization consists of."

The police service has also focused its efforts internally, to help ensure the RPS is providing a welcoming workplace for Aboriginal employees.

"We do a lot of cultural sensitivity training, cultural awareness training, internally at the police college," Dudar said. There are also Elders on staff to provide support to Aboriginal employees.

The RPS has shown its commitment to work with the Aboriginal community during recent police investigations, welcoming the involvement of Aboriginal volunteers in searches, and seeking advice from Elders. That in itself has gone a long way in building positive relationships, Dudar said.

"The chief of police is very, very big on community, on building community, on building partnerships, on working with everybody to come to a common end. So I think the fact that we don't just talk about it, we do it, really works in our favour."

As part of its efforts to attract more Aboriginal employees, the RPS has brought in a new summer student program to provide Aboriginal students with opportunities to see first hand what it's like to work for the police service. The program sparked a lot of interest within the Aboriginal community, Dudar said, with about 150 people applying the three summer positions.

Two of the summer students hired will work in the records area, doing things like data entry and file management, while the third will work with the police department's caretakers, doing general building maintenance.

"We're hoping that they're going to see that we are an OK organization, that we are an organization that welcomes Aboriginal people, that they're going to see that this may be something that they could be interested in as a career," Dudar said about the reason behind launching the summer student program.

"And when I speak of that, I don't just mean on our policing side, I mean on our civilian side as well. So we're hoping that this may be something that sparks them."

The career opportunities on the civilian side of things are many and varied, Dudar said. "They go from, say, photo techs in our forensics identification unit to crime analysts to crime prevention strategists to clerk to property people to caretakers to mechanics to records people to 911 operators. There's a huge variety of civilian employment opportunities."

While Dudar believes the RPS has had some success getting the message out to the Aboriginal community that they should cnsider a career with the police service, there is still much more work to be done.

"We've put more emphasis on it coming into this year than we had, say, back five years. And as a result I think we are seeing a larger number of First Nations applicants," he said.

"We currently have 34 Aboriginal employees-that would be First Nations, Metis and Inuit. So we still have some work to do. But I think, I really think, word is getting out there that it's an OK career. That we are an OK organization."

The RPS is making an concerted effort to increase the number of employees it has representing all identified employment equity groups-Aboriginal people, women, people from visible minorities and people with disabilities-and plans to run a competition this summer specifically to attract candidates from the four target groups.

For more information about career opportunities with the Regina Police Service, visit the RPS Web site at www.police.regina.sk.ca.