The Strathcona County (SC) Community Safety and Well-being (CSWB) Strategy is supported by a group of community partners who find new, innovative ways to collaborate to address the strategic priorities of CSWB. One of the strategic priorities of the strategy is community safety. Work on this priority includes taking action to ensure that community members feel safe from crime, including while they use SC recreation facilities. Two recently developed initiatives, Lock It or Lose It and Project Lockup, are designed with the priority of community safety in mind. 

Lock It or Lose It 

Lock It or Lose It is the result of a unique collaboration between CSWB partners, the SC RCMP, along with the Enforcement Services Department, and the Recreation, Parks, and Culture (RPC) Department. This initiative has been created to raise awareness and reduce theft from patron lockers in County recreation facilities.

Nearly two years ago, the RCMP and Enforcement Services area created a new team called, the Corporate Security Team. Although the primary focus of this team is to identify and mitigate risk or loss of County assets, another area of focus of the new team is protecting the County’s reputation while mitigating the risk of loss of personal property in County facilities. The RPC Department, who oversee several recreation facilities in SC, are one of Corporate Security’s most frequent collaborators and the two teams have worked together to create a new initiative called Lock It or Lose It. You may see the changes brought about by the initiative the next time you visit one of our recreation centres! There’s a new advertising campaign that features posters displaying the slogan, "Lock It or Lose It." Squeezy Stress Balls in the form of padlocks have also been distributed to help keep the important campaign front of mind for facility patrons. In addition, real padlocks have been made available to purchase on site at recreation facilities. 

The initiative has both created awareness of the need to lock up personal property and provided a ready solution-availability of padlocks for purchase by patrons of County facilities. The campaign has already resulted in increased use of padlocks and as a result, there are fewer unsecured lockers. The projection is that this in turn will deter individuals from targeting County facilities for theft. RPC and RCMP and Enforcement Services hope that at the end of the year, they will be able to report that there has been less crime at County facilities in 2024.  

For more information about Lock It or Lose It please contact RCMP and Enforcement Services at 780-467-7741. 

Project Lockup 

A new provincial initiative called Project Lockup developed by a section of the provincial RCMP focused on CSWB, is being leveraged in SC. Under Project Lockup, repeat break and enter occurrence data is generated at regular intervals throughout the year. A member from a section of the provincial RCMP focused on CSWB contacts home or property owners whose property has been the target of break and enters. They discuss how to prevent crime and better protect the property through environmental measures such as better lighting and other options. The RCMP CSWB team also sends information packages through the mail to property owners and if the owner is interested, the team will come to the property and conduct an assessment.  

The work of preventing property crime is already an important area of focus for Community Peace Officers and Strathcona County Community Policing who work in partnership with community organizations such as Citizens on Patrol and Crime Watch. Using data provided by the provincial RCMP CSWB team through Project Lockup, Strathcona RCMP will align preexisting property crime prevention efforts and processes to support Project Lockup and its implementation in our community. The goal is even greater reductions in property crime and the collaborators working on the project look forward to sharing the successes of the partnership later this year.

For more information about Project Lockup please contact Strathcona Community Policing at 780-467-7741 or by email at KStrathconaCPU-KStrathconaUPC@rcmp-grc.gc.ca.