My community needed a youth officer, not a TV cop | Joshua Conner | TEDxQueensU

Whether it be representations of the police in the news, or the portrayal of the job on TV or in the movies, police officers are depicted most in their enforcement duties. Despite representing a small part of an officer’s duties, these enforcement roles provide the most entertainment. But does a community want its police service to solely occupy an enforcement role? Constable Josh Conner started his career focused on the typical enforcement roles as he worked towards his goal of becoming a drug enforcement officer. However, the day he was asked to take the newly-created role of Youth Officer, Josh’s career changed dramatically. As he would come to realize, even officers sometimes forget that their role is ultimately to ensure community safety. Very quickly into his youth work, Josh saw that a lack of understanding from all sides of the police/public equation was an issue. As Josh asserts, this lack of understanding from all sides needs to be addressed to move towards safer communities. Josh has worked as a police officer since 2006, after graduating from Queen’s University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology. In 2010 he transferred from Durham Regional Police to Kingston Police, and quickly moved into working in the Community Oriented Response and Engagement Unit. Josh has worked as the Youth Programs Officer since 2015, the year this position was created. He was tasked with building a platform for youth engagement in the Kingston community, and developing programs to improve the lives of local youth. Josh spent extensive time both working directly with youth in the community, and evaluating and implementing new initiatives. In his 11 years, Josh has received two Chief’s commendations and extensive recognition from Kingston community agencies. He has spoken at a number of conferences across the province on his work with youth and has also made a number of appearances at schools as a guest lecturer. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx