BRAMPTON POLICE DEPARTMENT

Prior to 1853 policing was supplied to Brampton by Chinguacousy Township. Each January elections for Township councillors were held and at the first council meeting Township officials such as path-masters, pound-keepers and constables were appointed. Little changed after Brampton’s incorporation, as a village in 1853 and as a town in 1873.

Brampton's efforts to combat crime certainly started under modest circumstances in 1873 when a by-law was passed by the newly formed Brampton town council. The by-law called for the induction of John Hurst as chief constable at the princely salary of $40 a year.

On May 7, 1888, Brampton Council passed the following motion: Moved that Council furnish the town Constable with a suitable uniform and that His Honour the Mayor be authorized to purchase same and that said uniform be the property of the town.Stiles Steavens became his assistant, or second constable, but his was only an honorary position, and he carried out his duties without any known form of payment whatsoever.

By all accounts, Hurst was hardly overworked in the small rural community. His duties, as well as those of his assistant, Stiles Stevens, were little more than to act as night watchman for the small downtown area and check doors to make sure that they were properly locked.

This was the way police work was done in Brampton for some time. Andrew Herkes is a classic example of the way small-town law enforcement worked in Brampton, as well as in the hundreds of other small communities throughout the country. Herkes was a former game warden from Scotland, who had come to Canada in 1912. By 1914 he found himself chief constable of Brampton. The former game warden is still remembered by some in Brampton as a well-liked fellow who was active in the town, especially when it came to sports.

Herkes's popularity with the townspeople put him in an ideal position to keep informed on what was going on around town. He would sit in the police station by the wood stove and people would drop by to visit and tell him what was going on and where. It was community police work at its best.

He was also known for not dragging every first offender to court if he thought that a good talking to would do the trick. So laid-back was the chief that on one occasion when he found it would be necessary to arrest two offenders at gunpoint, he had to go back to the station for his gun.

The policing profession remained a simple one in Brampton throughout the 1940s, 1950s,andmidwaythrough the 1960s.

Frank Keats was chief from World War II until 1965. During this time, the police in Brampton were also responsible for the ambulance service. Therefore, if there were many serious injuries at a particular time, the town might be without police while the patients were taken by ambulance to Toronto.

Since radios in police cars were not introduced until the 1950s, prior to that time some way had to be found to contact the constable on the beat when he was needed at the station. Keats solved this problem by working out a system whereby streetlights near the Four Corners area were flashed in the hope that the officer would eventually notice and report back.

The Brampton police were investigated by the newly formed Ontario Police Commission in the mid-1960s, and Chief Keats was criticized for exhibiting bad management skills. Blame could hardly be placed entirely on Keats, for up until that time there was little uniform training for police officers. One of the commission's recommended changes was to relieve the police of their ambulance duties.

The last chief of the Brampton police force was Stanley Raike, who was in charge of the force until the Peel Regional force was established in 1974. Raike was made deputy chief in the Peel Regional Police.

-Ken Moore

BIG CHANGES IN OUR POLICE SERVICE
In both Numbers and Salaries
Town of Brampton's 100th Anniversary 1873-1973
by Paddy Thomas

Today, Brampton's police story is a very different one. Police Chief, Stanley Raike, commands a force of 57 officers, two of whom are women. He has a staff of four civilian office workers and a civilian caretaker in charge of the police building plus four cadets in training, one of these is also a woman.

Contributing to the efficiency of Brampton's Police Force, besides the leadership of Chief Stanley Raike, is the almost space-age type equipment that has been installed in the town's police station. There is a Telex Machine, plus an incredible Computer Terminal that is directly linked up with the 12 million dollar computer in Ottawa, where the Canadian Police Information Centre is located. Within seconds, all data on file concerning well-known or little known criminals, required by the Brampton Force, is relayed to them direct. It is a mechanically infallible system and requires no manual relay.

The residents of Brampton have a far more adult approach to their police these days than they used to only a few years ago. Chief Raike says they (the policemen) are virtually losing their role of perpetual villain. He adds that gradually the gap between police and public is being bridged and people are beginning to realise that the prevention of crime is a community responsibility. They are becoming aware that the police need assistance from the average man in the street and their co-operation in many matters is noticeable.

As well as the regular police officers, Brampton's force can boast a Youth Advisor, who ad- vises not only the young people who are groping their way through a puzzling world, and some- times not finding their way too easily, but their parents too. There is also an identification officer, detectives and the four cadets, not yet qualified, but in training to be able to cope with various facets of police work.

There are nine police cruisers attached to the Brampton Police Station, and emblazoned on their doors is the legend "Par Ardua Bonum Civilium" -through hazards for the betterment of society. Chief Raike, who served in the Royal Canadian Air Force, adapted this from the Air Force motto "Par Ardua Ad Astra" and he is striving, together with the men and women of his force, to make this motto come true.

One hundred years ago, the town's one police-man was not kept very busy-Brampton was a law-abiding little town, and the second-in-command, the unpaid night watchman, Johnston Barrett, spent most of his nights walking along Main Street trying the handles of the store doors to see if they were locked properly.

Now, Chief Raike's entire contingent is kept on its toes at all times, day and night. Not that the crime rate in Brampton is exceptionally high, the fact of the matter is that today's police force is as much engaged in preventive police work as they are in re-active police work. It is interesting to note that although the population of Brampton has increased drastically in recent years, there has been no significant in- crease in the rate of crime in proportion to this population influx.

Brampton's present police force, according to the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, has one of the highest, if not the highest, record of concluded crimes in the entire realm of Canada, and that is efficiency indeed.

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