Even though he has only been in office for four months, the new chief of the Service de police de la ville de Montréal (SPVM), Fady Dagher, made a point of reporting on his projects launched to stop the haemorrhage of departures from police officers and to create bonds between police recruits and the people they serve, in particular through a new immersive internship in the community.
Essentially, he returned to the three priorities he had established when he took office last January: the difficult recruitment of police officers, the rapprochement between officers and the population, as well as the fight against armed violence.
On recruitment, he first recalled having increased the salaries of recruits by 30% to make the remuneration more competitive with that of other police forces.
The recent signing of the SPVM collective agreement has also brought gains for police officers’ salaries, but also changes to schedules. He announced that he had obtained 131 places from the Ministry of Public Security — rather than 25, as was the case until now — for recruits from the AED police diversity program, which trains recruits from cultural minorities or other having “a more social profile”, he pointed out. They will be in post in September 2024.
“We have started to stop the bleeding given the great shortage of personnel,” he rejoiced at a press conference from the SPVM headquarters.
The cornerstone of its “reaching out” priority is the opportunity given to recruits to live a four-week immersion experience in the community.
Police and community organizations
For those who are not from Montreal, this will give them the opportunity to better understand the reality of Montreal, its cultural communities and its network of community organizations that work with the police, indicated Mr. Dagher. But for everyone, the program will make it possible to be confronted with situations in mental health and domestic violence “to learn without the stress, outside the police intervention”.
In terms of the fight against armed violence, Fady Dagher recalled that the SPVM has made 107 arrests and seized 249 firearms since taking office.
For the coming summer, the plan is to do “targeted deterrence” and “keep the pressure on”. The leader talks about scrutinizing behavior rather than racial profiling. Asked about this, he said it was about working with information from criminal intelligence services to monitor those who lead criminal groups.
The approach has a prevention component, he says. To the groups who are calling for the defunding of the police to allocate funds to community groups that work upstream, he replies that they are right on one aspect: these groups do not have enough financial means to properly carry out their missions. But he specifies that they cannot replace the police when a person is in a crisis and violent situation.
“It’s not one or the other, it’s one and the other. »