Saskatoon Police officers appear to have caught on to the new policies for street checks, also known as contact interviews. The new rules were introduced last March in Saskatoon and since October, officers have followed the new guidelines 100 per cent of the time.

That’s according to a new report from the board of police commissioners.

From March 19th to December 31st, 498 cases were recorded as contact interviews. 244 of those cases turned out to not be contact interviews and 9 cases were recorded as errors or test cases. The other 245 cases were contact interviews with 201 being filed correctly.

The new rules state that street checks can’t be conducted based on race, colour, gender or religion, etc.

A new regulation also states that checks can’t be made only because someone is in an area where crime rates are high.

Chief Cooper says training was on-going after the March date which could have resulted in some of the interviews not being conducted properly.

The new regulations were introduced by the Saskatchewan Police Commission in 2018. Cooper says the police service has to report their street check numbers on a yearly basis to the province.

During Chief Cooper’s report during the board meeting, he noted that for an 8th in a row that the Saskatoon Police Service has been recognized as one of Saskatchewan’s top employers.