By Patrick Burles - @PatrickBurles on Twitter

New LPS triage system to help prioritize calls

Mar 20, 2017 | 12:56 PM

LETHBRIDGE – A pilot project launched by the Lethbridge Police Service in late 2016, is now going into full effect.

The Alternative Response Management (ARM) process diverts lower-priority and non-emergency phone reports for review — supplementing the LPS Online Reporting System that has been up and running for several years — instead of automatically dispatching an officer to the scene. Once the review is completed, an officer will follow-up as soon as possible.

“What was happening is we would have anywhere from 20 to 30 calls waiting for service, and so without a true triage happening people would sit for hours, in some instances over a day, waiting for us to respond,” explained LPS Chief, Rob Davis. “So this allows us to do a better assessment, triage it, and then respond to the public.”

Davis stated that in cases where there is no suspect, time of crime or anything concrete for them to investigate, it makes no sense to send an officer, either taking his attention away from another case or forcing the caller to wait for the officer to become available.

He also noted that since implementing the pilot project, they found 20 to 40-per cent of the calls they were receiving could be handled through ARM.

What's Happening in Lethbridge this week: February 10-16, 2025

Feb 10, 2025

What's Happening in Lethbridge this week: January 29-February 2, 2025

Jan 29, 2025

What's Happening in Lethbridge this week: January 20-26, 2025

Jan 20, 2025

“It’s a by-product of the growth of the city,” said Davis. “The city is really growing and we have to start looking how to be more efficient, more effective, and that’s where we’d love to have a police officer on every street and on every corner, but the reality is, we just have to be more efficient and effective in how we deploy.

“One thing we need to stress, is that we want the public to still report,” he continued. “We’re moving towards evidence based policing, and so we really need people to still report things, so that we have a report on file, and that allows us to do an analysis of the data, determine trends, patterns, hot spots if you will, so then we can deploy our officers properly in a proactive manner in those neighbourhoods.”

The process comes as a result of an LPS review of similar protocols established by law enforcement agencies across Canada, the US and the UK.

For local news delivered daily to your email inbox, subscribe for free to the Lethbridge News Now newsletter here. You can also download the Lethbridge News Now mobile app in the Google Play and the Apple App Stores.