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Rating considerably lower than it was four years ago, when 51 per cent of Calgary police members polled said morale was good.
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Morale among the ranks of Calgary police and their perception of the city’s safety have improved over last year, an internal survey shows.
While officers’ view of Calgary as a safe city ticked up just two points this year over last, to 77 per cent, the number who say morale within the Calgary Police Service is good rose by 10 points, to 23 per cent.
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But that number is still considerably lower than it was four years ago, when 51 per cent of police members polled said they rated morale as good.
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And in the email survey conducted last summer by the Calgary police commission, a civilian oversight body, in which 1,625 sworn and civilian staffers took part, 50 per cent said their own morale was good.
Last December, Calgary police Chief Mark Neufeld said morale challenges were an issue shared by many law enforcement jurisdictions and predicted those internal satisfaction numbers would improve, given hiring and changes to internal policy changes.
Calgary police has held focus groups with members to understand what needs to be done to help officers. The police service is working to reorganize the department to support members and modernize its human resources department, the chief said 10 months ago.
“We were looking at what other agencies have done, and what we found was we’re probably going to be leading in this space,” Neufeld said at the time.
He also said as the city emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic, a sense of normalcy should return and push those numbers in a positive direction.
Stated the 2023 report: “Just over one-quarter of employees indicate they have experienced a positive impact from actions taken by CPS to improve employee engagement.”
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In the most recent survey, the biggest concerns among police staff were workloads/high turnover and poor leadership.
Among the most frequently cited positives were views of their co-workers and supervisors, followed by improvements to workloads and to the police service’s budget.
The survey report noted the Calgary police budget has seen a recent increase of $64 million, with 290 new positions being added between 2022 and 2026.
The positive perception of service delivery jumped from 70 per cent in 2022 to 77 per cent this year, though that number was pegged at 95 per cent in 2012.
While 77 per cent of officers and civilian CPS staffers this year viewed Calgary as a safe place, that number was 98 per cent in 2012.
Although the number of shootings in the city has fallen this year over last, those crimes continue to be a major concern and focus as does overall social disruption, police leaders have said this year.
More to come …
— With files from Stephanie Babych
BKaufmann@postmedia.com
X: @BillKaufmannjrn
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