Episode Notes

Learn more!

• Applying a Critical Lens to Broken Windows Theory
  • Pros and Cons of Broken Windows Policing
  • Broken Windows, Informal Social Control, and Crime: Assessing Causality in Empirical Studies
  • Looking Through Broken Windows: The Impact of Neighborhood Disorder on Aggression and Fear of Crime Is an Artifact of Research Design

• Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED)
  • The International Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design Association
  • CPTED Canada

• OPP Application Process
  • Become a Police Officer
  • OPP Recruitment
  • OPP Careers
  • Ask a Recruiter Anything! Info on joining the Ontario Provincial Police

• Volunteer opportunities / websites for Peterborough and Durham regions
  • Volunteer Peterborough (Peterborough)
  • Peterborough Volunteering
  • Trent CareerSpace Volunteering (Trent Durham/Peterborough)
  • Community Care Durham
  • Volunteer Durham
  • Registered Student Clubs at Trent

• Public Speaking Skills
  • 10 Tips for Improving Your Public Speaking Skills
  • Skills Competences Canada: Public Speaking
  • 7 Public Speaking Tips for Beginners

Transcript

Beth: Welcome to the Social Profs Podcast with your hosts Beth Torrens and Kristy Buccieri. This is the podcast where we attempt to turn teaching inside out by engaging in conversations outside the classroom with faculty, community members, and Trent student alumni. Our goals with these conversations are to learn more about the benefits of a criminology or sociology degree and to talk about the ways that students can get more involved at Trent and in the community. We will also do a deep dive with some Trent professors to learn more about their approaches to teaching, what drives their research, and a few fun facts you can only learn when you turn teaching inside out.

Kristy: Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have a career in policing? Today’s guest is Provincial Constable Alexa Vanderhorst with the Ontario Provincial Police. In this episode PC Vanderhorst speaks about the values of her education as a Trent Alum with a sociology degree and specialization in criminology and socio-legal studies. We discuss the role of police in helping citizens connecting with resources and other organizations, and why volunteering in your community is a great first step you can take now towards a career in policing. Thank you so much for joining us. You are a former Trent alum as well, coming out of our sociology department. Always amazing to connect with former students and catch up to see what you’re doing now in your career. Can you tell us a bit about what your current occupation is, what you’re doing these days?

Alexa: Yeah, so as previously mentioned, I’m currently a Provincial Constable with the Ontario Provincial Police. I’ve just been on for about one year now and it’s a really exciting job it’s never like any day is the same and um a lot in terms of like what I actually do there is a lot of responding to to calls a variety of calls whether that be assisting ambulance or assisting fire or traffic enforcement, responding to medical calls, a lot of paperwork, which is something that is surprising about policing, lots of reports and due diligence to make sure that you’re covering off your bases and that the investigative avenues that need to be taken are done. And then mainly educating other individuals in the community about laws or pointing them in the right direction of other services and connecting them with resources that could help them if police are not able to, such as like mental health resources or CAS, things like that. Yeah, that’s basically a little brief summary of a role of what I might do on a day in policing.

Beth: Lots of different activities it seems.

Alexa: Yeah

Beth: So, in thinking about kind of all of the things that you do as part of that job. What did your previous educational work, or sorry, educational and work path look like? And how did that help get you to where you are now?

Alexa: Yeah, so I completed four years at Trent in the sociology and criminology study back in 2018 to 2022. And I found that really helped provide me with the core foundation for my officer just giving me that sociological lens when I’m interacting with individuals for calls that I respond to as well as I worked as a park warden for Ontario Parks which allowed me to enforce rules and regulations within the park boundaries and gain those communication skills in terms of interacting with the public at a different level such as confrontational experiences It allows me to regulate your motions, but still get key points across, which is something that I have to do on a daily basis in policing. And being a park warden just helped me provide that base level of what laws are, how to enforce them, as well as how to clearly communicate with the public. And then I also worked for the municipality of Trent Hills, which is where I actually police now. So, I found it was a good way to learn how to navigate the community and what community resources are available in that town. The diversity within the community and then just help me to improve my overall communication skills with that rural public dynamic. And that really helps me today when I already am familiar with that town and what’s there.

Beth: It seems like you’ve been able to take a lot of benefits from other jobs and kind of apply them to what you’re currently doing now. And you mentioned a little bit about that sociological imagination. So, I’m just wondering if you can expand on how your earlier sociology education has been a benefit in your current job, a little bit beyond that sociological imagination part.

Alexa: Yeah, so I would say that sociology helped me to understand how, like, one social environment can impact or shape the decisions and behaviors that they have, which may be good or bad for how we respond to them, as well as, like, the social environment that they grew up in. So certain patterns of behavior that’s normal to them, right? like if they saw their parents always steal to them, that’s normal. So, then we have to try and like break that back and get them more in tune with what is socially acceptable in society, whether that to them is normal or not. And to everybody need money, normal is different for anybody and there is no normal, but what’s socially acceptable more so. And then also I would say, the broken windows theory that I learned in sociology really helped me to understand how like disorder is breeding disorder, in the sense that some environments are completely like, you know, filled with garbage and literally broken windows. And then that helps to um… speak to how more more crime may be generated in those areas because people aren’t respecting the environment so then they feel you know they’re not respecting people in a sense it seemed to me like disorder breeds disorder um also I would say there was a course one of the sociology courses that I took that specifically touched on environmental design and it focused on like um you know if your bushes aren’t trimmed back or you don’t have specific lighting like it’s a really dark dungie area and that can cause people to be for like crime to be attracted to those areas and I find that at times when I’m trying to safety plan with people who are victims of crime I just kind of like I tell them like do you have cameras up what’s your lighting like outside you know is there bushes that are blocking that you can’t see these people you know getting into your into your house. Like we try to be proactive and prevent these situations from occurring again and that brought me back to that course that talked about the sociology course that talked about environmental design and how that can really attract crime. And then it also sociology I found when we were talking about dynamics of like relationships for people. It also helps me foster a victim-centered approach when I’m speaking with individuals who are victims of domestic violence or any type of abuse. It allows me to see things from their lens. Be patient that they’re not always going to open up to a stranger about their entire life story and just, yeah, be patient with them and realize that they’re being extremely vulnerable with you and just to have some respect for the story that they’re sharing. I think university in general helps with being a good listener and considering other avenues or opinions that others may have towards the same problem and allows me to also engage like problem solving skills. Yeah, that’s what I would say.

Kristy: It’s all really interesting. And you’ve mentioned a number of different sort of professions that you interact with, victim’s advocacy, mental health, children’s aid society. I’m wondering if you could speak a bit about policing and other careers as well, that sociology, criminology grads might be interested in following up on after they graduate.

Alexa: Yeah, so if you’re not interested in policing, something similar would be, as I’ve mentioned, what I did was a park warden in Ontario Parks. If you love outside and you like that fresh air and being like in touch with nature, but also interacting with the public, I found a parkour and was a great opportunity. It was a really good summer job, and I did get to go on a course and learn about different law enforcement avenues as well as like self-defense. We did like some defensive tactics classes and fitness which was really fun. I’d say also another option if you’re not specifically looking into policing but something of that route there’s also the special constable route that you could go where you more so help out with like court or prisoner transports and complete like a lot of paperwork inside the courts or help with the whole court process which is extremely helping and helps us police officers out if that’s something else that you’re into or if you want to continue on and do some more school. I mean, you can still go the Lawyer Avenue, which is obviously very interesting, but you’ve got to be able to grind and do that a little bit more school.

Beth: That sounds like some great suggestions and future career trajectories for students. Going the other way down the path and a little bit more of a friendly kind of get-to-know-you question, what’s your favorite memory from when you were a student?

Alexa: I would say probably I did play on the rugby team at Trent, the women’s rugby team, and I really enjoyed that. One moment in particular would be when it was in my fourth year, we had the homecoming at Trent and the women’s rugby team actually got to play at home that year. And I just remember the stands being packed and the whole area being packed and this was like fresh after COVID. So, it was just like this feeling of overwhelming like pride in your school when you got to, you know, be playing against that other team and cheering for Trent. I really enjoyed the team environment with the rugby team and just the amount of people that came out to watch those games and that smaller, like the smaller university atmosphere that Trent allowed me to have, which I really liked.

Kristy: So, what advice would you then give to students who are nearing the end of their degree, who are sort of coming potentially into fourth year, or even earlier, looking ahead, thinking about their career and finding employment after they graduate?

Alexa: Advice that I would give is to start getting involved in your community now and create those relationships. I found when I began to volunteer, for instance, I’m a volunteer firefighter, and I also volunteered with the skating club in my area, I found those connections helped me to build connections with other people who may be able to get me employment opportunities or like assist me in pointing me in direction where there are employment opportunities available. And I also find whether it’s volunteering like in your community or at school, there’s also some good school groups at Trent that you can join. So I look into those, just building those friend connections, see what bounce ideas off of other people, like what are you doing in terms of employment or how are you going to go about that or who do they know or different resources that they might have in terms of gaining those employment opportunities. In terms of like policing, if they’re looking into that they could apply to the auxiliary program, which is a volunteer program to you, you got to come out with police officers and do ride alongs, you actually go up to a really and do like, I’m not sure how many days but you do some training. And that’s a great option if that’s what you’re looking into, because it gets you right into the inside world of policing to make sure like, okay, this is what I actually want to do. And then I’d also just take any opportunity to practice your public speaking skills. I think that’s a really good asset to have and communicating with others. You know, if like the presentations have to be done or panel discussions, try and take a lead on that. And it just helps to set you up for success in the future in terms of knowing how to speak to people and when to take the turn to listen, but I would, I mean there’s never like, it’s never too early to start applying. You can always, as application processes, take a long time. If you want to start applying when you’re in fourth year, that’s always an option too, to careers because the application process does take a while, but I would definitely look at ways to get involved in your community because your employer isn’t going to just be looking for what you’ve done in terms of employment. It’s also about volunteering and the leadership roles that you’ve taken.

Beth: That sounds like a lot of really great advice for current students, and also a lot to think about in terms of where they might end up, but what they can be doing now in order to kind of get themselves set up on that right path. Thank you very much for joining us today, Alexa.

Alexa: Not a problem.

[Music]