Involve community to bring down crime: Toronto police chief

New Delhi, Feb 26 (IANS) Chief of Toronto police in Canada, William Blair, here Thursday offered advice to his Delhi counterpart  Y.S. Dadwal and asked him to increase community involvement in policing to bring down the crime
rate in the city.

During an interaction here on 'Building a Safe City Through Community Based Policing', Blair said Toronto has been able to bring down the incidents of crime by 35 percent in five years by just involving common people.

"We need to build a positive relationship within the community to bring down the crime rate. We need to make them feel safe by developing mutual trust and that can only be possible if we work together," said the top cop of Toronto.

Blair said Toronto is like Delhi and has a large population and a multi-cultural society.

"We have over 5,500 police officers and 2,200 civilian employees who work in tandem to help us maintain law and order situation in the city. Believe me, partnership with civilians has helped us in managing law and order situation
in city even with less police force and we are ready to share our experiences with India," he said.

The Toronto police work in synchronisation with Toronto Police Board, a civil police organisation.

"We have formed several civilian committees who are consulted at every level starting from policy making, policing, to implementation of laws. It has proved to be a miraculous project as people feel connected and committed to help police," said Alok Mukherjee, chairman of Toronto Police Board.