It was the first annual summit that set out to educate the public on how to protect themselves through prevention.
WACO, Texas — The Waco Police Department held their first annual crime prevention summit on Saturday.
The department wanted to make sure that the public is educated when it comes to protecting themselves, their homes and their businesses.
“We’re doing our best to maintain a safe community here in Waco and its something that requires all of our support,” Waco police commander Jared Wallace said.
Wallace says that everyone can do their part to educate themselves and keep Waco a safer community.
“There’s a small number of police officers here but we have over 200,000 people in our community everyday,” he said. “If everybody does a little bit of prevention from the beginning, reporting suspicious activity to the police, making sure that they take all their valuables, they lock their doors, look out for each other, then we’ll be a much safer community.”
The summit had presentations of human trafficking, travel safety, theft prevention, situational awareness and more.
Community partners and programs were also in attendance. Voice is a non-profit that empowers children and their families to lead healthy and productive lives by conducting evidence-based programs that teach critical life skills.
“We teach how to resist peer pressure, strengthen family bonds, value education, live a healthy life,” Cheryl Allen, a director at Voice, said.
The program has multiple programs both inside schools and outside of them to teach kids life skills from a young age and deter them away from alcohol and drugs.
“The younger we start to help develop critical life skills, the less likely they are to turn to criminal behavior, even things like sports, we encourage healthy living.”
A spokesperson for the Waco Police Department said that this will become an annual event.