The Vancouver Police Department has collaborated with different organizations within our communities to further improve relationships and to come up with community safety strategies. The following three programs are ones that the VPD have direct involvement with; we have provided links for you to read more on these programs.

Pace Society recognized the need and has developed a Violence Prevention Program for survival sex workers in collaboration with the VPD. The violence prevention program takes a look at topics such as prevention, defusing violent situations, when to disengage and lastly when to defend. This program has been running for four years and is the first time police have worked in collaboration with sex workers. This program also makes sure that the bad date information is getting out into the community where sex workers have access to it. Their aim is to encourage workers to report bad dates by providing a secure and confidential environment. This program also builds stronger relationships with not only each other, but with the police and other community partners.

For more information about Pace Society please click on the link: www.pace-society.ca

John School is based upon the restorative justice model and the focus is on educating offenders who are attempting to buy sex in Vancouver neighbourhoods. This daylong program will provide “Johns” with a number of speaker’s who will address such issues as health education, information on the laws, personal stories from sex worker’s, as well as the impact that they have had on communities. The John Howard Society and Vancouver Police Vice Unit have been running the Prostitution Offenders Program (POP) since 1999.

For more information about John School In Vancouver, BC, Canada please click on the link: www.jhslmbc.ca

The VPD has ongoing sensitivity training for all new recruits around Vancouver’s sex industry. An experiential person shares their experiences and outlook on street level sex work and educates the new recruits on how to engage and best support street level sex workers while on duty. This has been a great opportunity for the new recruits to speak with and experiential person on the realities of survival sex work and humanizing the issue before they walk the beat. In the last three years, 168 new recruits have received sensitivity training.