The Dispatch | Vol. 5, No. 1, January 2023

Young People Who Care: An Inexhaustible Resource Awaits

Norman E. Taylor
Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Community Safety and Well-Being

To borrow an opener from the inimitable Canadian comedy Letterkenny – I was talking with the grandkids the other daaaay.

As it happens, my three grandchildren span three fairly distinct generational cohorts. According to the literature on such things, the oldest is deemed to be a pure Millennial, turning 30 in a few months. The middle one rides the cusp, and with equal parts over-achiever and young-at-heart qualities, I’m pretty sure she could go either way on that. The youngest is a walking definition of Gen Z, and thus, my most abundant source for all things emergent and cool.

We gathered recently in maybe not our first, but certainly our most relaxed and hopeful post-pandemic event, celebrating multiple events displaced and deferred by multiple events. After a day of buoyant and diverse conversations, I came away with two pretty powerful observations that I have since found to be shaping a lot of my own thoughts on the year ahead.

The first, and forgive the implicit bragging, is that they are all shockingly brilliant. By that, I certainly don’t mean I ever suspected otherwise, and full credit to their parents, aunt, uncle and teachers for much of that (and of course, their grandmother). Rather, amid a constant feed of stereotyped commentary in the mainstream and social media, one could easily be lulled into the lazy assumption that recent generations have somehow become more detached, even dare-say more vapid, than those who like to romanticize their own youthful experience in earlier times. News flash, we were never as ‘all that’ as we might like to think.

Consider that my grandkids have always carried devices on their person, at least from a certain ever-younger age, with more access to instant knowledge, more processing power, and more processing speed than I could ever realistically compare. I tried looking up comparisons to the libraries and mainframe devices of my early career, and as one wag put it, that’s like trying to define the difference in size between an ant and the sun. Enough said. What is striking though, is that despite the real evidence of vapidity in the public sphere, these young adults are phenomenally self-aware, socially aware, world-aware, and future-focused. Moreover, they care. Truth be told, I think they care at least as much, and maybe even more, than we truly ever did, pop festivals notwithstanding. Certainly, their caring is of a much more deeply informed variety.

The second take-away is perhaps an even more self-indulgent one. The kids still find their old Papa to be relevant, or at least, it sure seems so from the depth, breadth, and mutuality of our exchanges. It can’t get much better than that, right?

This brings me to the point of this narrative, and to the theme we hope to pursue and illuminate throughout this year’s regular issues of the Journal. If older generations are to be relevant to those younger than ourselves, it follows that we have an unshakeable responsibility.

We must put our own vanities to the fire. We must endure boomer-mockery with a strong chin (or the growing silencing of Gen X ideals, if that is the shoe that fits). And we must begin to recognize the untapped potential that awaits, invite it inside, and learn together how best to harness and deploy it with a much more deliberate energy. The emerging generations are as ready and are rapidly becoming more qualified to step forward into the service of a better society, a safer world, and a more sustainable future than ever before. Let’s put our attention to how we can sometimes lead, sometimes follow, and maybe most importantly, sometimes get out of their way.

Consider this an open call for papers that might point the way on any, and all, of these options. If you are working as an academic or practitioner in the fields of health, education, social services or justice, or across the intersections of all of them, we would like to hear how your work can shed new light on these ambitions.

Watch for a sizzling opening editorial from Contributing Editor Michael DeValve in our first issue of the year, coming in March. I am certain it will whet your appetite to get involved.

JCSWB – A Year in Review, 2022

We are grateful to our esteemed authors who submitted and published so many strong papers with us in the past year. In 2022, the Journal of CSWB received 63 submissions and published 44 articles. This work has undoubtedly made an impact in community safety and well-being, evidenced by the increase in article views - the Journal of CSWB has been read more than ever, with over 77,000 article views in 2022, compared to 68,800 in 2021.

Additional highlights from 2022 include:

The success of the Journal is due to the collective efforts of the Journal Team, contributors, volunteers, partners, and supporters. We would like to take this opportunity to thank our Editor-in-Chief, Senior Contributing Editor and Contributing Editor Community who have been vital in ensuring the Journal maintains its high standards. We are appreciative to our reviewers, whose expertise and guidance have been instrumental, and to our readers who continue to support the JCSWB community. Importantly, we recognize that none of this would be possible without the continued support of our wonderful Mission Supporter, Niche Technology!

We have some exciting plans in 2023 to ensure the continued growth and success of the Journal of CSWB, including:

More information and exciting announcements to come in future issues of The Dispatch and through the Journal’s social media channels—stay tuned!

In 2022 we welcomed a record number of 33,529 website visitors from 176 different countries, published 44 articles and received 77,326 full-text article views. We look forward to furthering scholarly research to a broad audience dedicated to community safety in 2023.

Enhancing Community Safety and Well-Being Capacity: Supporting a Coalition of Progressive Chiefs

Cal Corley, MBA
CEO, Community Safety Knowledge Alliance

The Community Safety Knowledge Alliance (CSKA) was established in 2015 to support governments, the police sector and others in developing, implementing and assessing new approaches to improving community safety and well-being outcomes.

In mid-2021, CSKA welcomed seven police services from across Canada as members in the alliance. These chiefs looked to CSKA to provide independent advice, research and organizational development support on a variety of strategic and tactical issues as they continue to work with others in adapting and shaping the emerging practice of collaborative community safety and well-being to the fast-paced realities of this century.

As Peel Regional Police Chief Nishan Duraiappah noted at the time,

“Approximately 70 to 80% of all calls for police service in our region, and many jurisdictions like ours, are non-criminal in nature. These societal issues continue to expose the limitations of the traditional community policing model. It’s become clear that many of these complex social issues require integrated, multi-disciplinary responses to achieve positive, sustainable outcomes.”

This was echoed by Calgary’s Chief Constable Mark Neufeld, who added that,

“These are increasingly dynamic times for policing. Broad-based calls for social change, together with tight fiscal times mounting on the horizon place some urgency on these efforts.”

It is against this backdrop that, over the past year and a half, CSKA has supported the chiefs of Calgary, Delta, Edmonton, Peel Regional, Regina and Victoria police services on a variety of projects aimed at their shared and progressive interests. Among the initiatives have been: identifying pathways toward broad adoption of collaborative community safety and wellbeing as an organizing principle across the ecosystem; better understanding the USA experience with ‘police defunding’; decriminalization; and sustainably improving relations with racialized communities.

The insights and new knowledge gained through this work are being, and will continue to be, shared with the broader policing and community safety partners. For example, articles are today being readied for submission to the Journal of Community Safety and Well-Being on a few of these, and other projects aligned to the adaptive and responsive vision of policing embodied in the idea of community safety and well-being.

Stay tuned.

Have you had the chance to read our December issue? To view the Table of Contents and articles from this issue, please visit:

https://www.journalcswb.ca/index.php/cswb/issue/view/29

Highlights from this issue include:

The Relationship between the legal status of drug possession and the criminalization of marginalized drug users: A literature review
[Review]
Akm Moniruzzaman, Stefanie N. Rezansoff, Julian M. Somers

Exploring the genesis and praxis of restorative justice in Nova Scotia, Canada
[Original Research]
Dr. Muhammad Asadullah

Firefighters: Hostility and world assumptions
[Original Research]
Shannon L. Wagner, Romana Pasca

Understanding the impact of bail refusal on the Australian public health system
[Social Innovation Narrative]
Isabelle Bartkowiak-Theron, Emma Colvin

Join the Canadian Credible Leadership Cohort

Are you ready to start your leadership journey? Apply now for CPKN’s next Canadian Credible Leadership Cohort, starting March 7th.

This virtual program pairs our online leadership course with facilitated workshops to provide a unique learning experience. The cohort is designed to help participants better understand their abilities to demonstrate behaviours, skills, and competencies relating to:

Apply early to reserve your seat, attendance is capped at 30 people!
Learn more at: https://www.cpkn.ca/en/cclcohort/

Submission Now Accepted for Presentations at OACP Annual Conference

This year’s OACP Annual Conference will take place in Kingston, ON from June 11 to 14, 2023. The OACP is now accepting proposals from organizations or individuals who may wish to present on a topic of interest to Ontario’s police leaders and personnel. Sessions will be scheduled under three daily “themes”:

Do you have a presentation on a project, police program/initiative, academic research, etc. you feel would benefit delegates to Ontario’s premier policing learning and networking event? If so, please send a short (maximum 150 words) proposal outlining your topic and proposed speakers to:

José Luís (Joe) Couto
Director of Government Relations and Communications
jcouto@oacp.ca

The deadline for submissions is February 8, 2023.

If you have any questions, please contact Joe Couto or Sharon Seepersad at sharons@oacp.ca.

Mark Your Calendars - JCSWB Wellness Special Issue Coming Soon!

A special issue of the JCSWB focused on wellness within the policing sector will be published in February 2023. Published through the support received from Deloitte Inc., and guest edited by Dr. Linna Tam-Seto and Dr. Jeff Thompson, this issue aims to explore and build upon continued developments in the policies, practices, and knowledge bases for improving mental health and general wellness outcomes for police service employees, their families, and their CSWB partners.

Research published in this special issue will be highlighted at a JCSWB session at the Canadian Policing Wellness Check Conference, hosted by the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. The conference is being held March 6-8, 2023 in Ottawa, Ontario.

Follow the Journal on Twitter and LinkedIn for the latest updates.

Thank You to our Reviewers

The Journal team would like to acknowledge and thank the peer reviewers who reviewed manuscripts for the Journal in 2022. These experts volunteer their valuable time and expertise to provide thoughtful comments, recommendations, and insightful guidance to our authors.

Did you know? Getting involved in the peer review process can be a highly rewarding experience that can also improve your own research and help to further your career.

Ready to get involved? Registration is fast and easy! Visit our “For Reviewers” page to learn more.

Open Call for Papers

New Year, new opportunity to publish your work with the Journal of CSWB! Submit your original research, social innovations, review articles, and more. Click here to learn about the benefits of submitting to the Journal.

Share your Work!

Are you ready to share your published work or an article of interest from the Journal? In the spirit of Open Access publications, the Journal has tools in place to help share published articles via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, email and more! Under the copyright information on the article-level page look for these icons:

If you are interested in having your meeting featured in our newsletter, please contact JCSWBCommunity@sgpublishing.ca.