Community Policing during quarantine – How the SCPD is maintaining connections and working to improve quality of life

By Sgt. Jeremy McClure, Community Policing Sergeant

The Sioux City Police Department strives to build strong relationships with members of the community and different organizations. We do this through Community Team Policing where every officer is assigned an area town to be responsible for and as a team, addresses concerns and issues affecting the quality of life in that part of town. We also attend numerous events and meetings to help make and maintain connections with the community.

Last year, we participated in 443 different events and meetings. At these events, an officer is present to interact with the public, answer questions, and help address concerns that the public may bring up to us. We also hand out give-away items and information on safety.

Officers pose with coloring submissions we received as part of our weekly coloring page. Kids that submit their work have received an item we usually hand out at events.

Several officers are invited to participate in numerous meetings and boards that address quality of life issues and provide social services in Sioux City. We are often the first contact many people have in a referral process for some sort of support for food, shelter, or other services for their well being.

With most of Sioux City in quarantine and all public gatherings canceled, it has posed a challenge to us to find a way to maintain community contact.  Last March we documented 47 various Community Team Policing events and this year, we only had 12 events and watched those numbers rapidly decline as events and meetings were canceled. We have also seen a decline in calls for service and have had a steep decline in traffic stops.

Officer Jenny Probasco read Police Officers on Patrol for our SCPD Reads weekly video.

Like most of us, we have had to move online to maintain connections. Social media has helped greatly in keeping connected. Our social media unit has spent more time monitoring messages and comments we receive and responding to people. We are also looking at additional online resources we can incorporate to make reporting minor crimes easier.

To reach out to children, we have been posting coloring pages we created featuring images from the department. Some of the kids that have submitted their work to us have been featured on our Facebook page and also received a gift from us.

We plan on posting a video a week of an officer reading a book to kids. These books feature police officers and show some adventure or information on what police do. Many of the books we will feature were purchased through grant administered by Siouxland Human Investment Partnership or SHIP. We have handed out many of these books at events for free to children attending.

As our traffic stops have declined, our traffic unit has refocused their efforts to graffiti abatement. In the last week, they have identified over 160 areas with graffiti. We are working with the property owners to remove the graffiti. Property owners can have the city remove the graffiti at no cost to them and the City will remove the graffiti by covering it up or using a soda blaster.

With new challenges come new opportunities. We will continue looking for ways to stay connected to the community during quarantine. Hopefully we can get through this sooner than later and be able to meet face-to-face again.