Teach Your Children Well

Written by Police Chief,J ack Beaton

Every parent instinctively tries to protect their children from hurtful acts and negative emotions. As a police officer, I was careful not to expose my children to anything I saw during my time as a street officer. I also knew I couldn't protect my children from all of the hateful acts and emotions found in our world.

The reality is our children are exposed to hate and bias crimes on television, in the playground and on the streets. We can't be with our children at all times to shelter them from hateful acts. Instead, it's important to help our children recognize a hate/bias crime or incident and make sure they know what to do if they are a victim or witness to such actions.

The Calgary Police Service is committed to working with the community to help prevent hate/bias crime. To increase the reporting of hate/bias crimes and incidents, the Calgary Police Service Cultural Resources Unit recently launched an initiative to encourage Calgarians to report these crimes and incidents to the police.

The following strategies from the Report Hate/Bias Crime! initiative will help you address this important issue: Reinforce the importance of understanding religions, customs and cultures different from our own. Children are naturally comfortable with people of different religions, cultures and customs. We could say they are naturally "diverse-friendly." Negative attitudes and hateful beliefs are often learned from others, when you're not around. The more we talk to our children about diversity, the more likely our children will hold on to positive and "diverse-friendly" values.

Report hate/bias crimes AND hate/bias incidents to the police. A hate/bias crime is a criminal offense committed against a person or property that is motivated, in whole or in part, by bias, prejudice or hate based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, gender, age, mental or physical disability or sexual orientation of the victim. Examples of hate/bias crime include:

• Violence, threats of violence
• Vandalism, graffiti
• Threatening phone calls
• Physical assaults
• Hate mail

A hate/bias incident occurs when someone is traumatized and upset by another's actions, but the act is not a criminal offense. Hate/bias incidents include name-calling, using racial slurs or receiving material promoting prejudice.

As part of the new Report Hate/Bias Crime! initiative, people are encouraged to report such incidents to the police to be included in a database to help with hate/bias crime investigations.

To report an incident believed to be motivated by hate, call the police at 266-1234. If it's an emergency, such as fire, serious injury or a crime in progress, call the police at 9-1-1.

Report Hate/Bias Crime! brochures are available at all Calgary Police Service district offices, public libraries and schools. For more information on the Report Hate/Bias Crime! initiative or to download a copy of the brochure and poster, visit the Calgary Police Service Web site at http://www.calgarypolice.ca./