What happens when cops reward kindness: Ward Clapham and the "Positive Tickets" program

Ward Clapham is a 28-year retired veteran of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). Until recently, he led the men and women who served within the third largest RCMP detachment, located in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada—a diverse multicultural community within the Metro Vancouver area.

Ward's Philosophy

Every breakthrough first requires a break with the old paradigms, practices, and principles that tether people and organizations to the status quo. Over his long tenure in policing, Ward has broken with many beliefs and behaviors that were ineffective and unproductive, hence the title of his book series "Breaking With the Law."

The program - and connection

Ward began bringing his team to morning minutes to triage what had happened over the last 24 hours. His job was to help remove barriers and obstacles to the men and women under him in the RCMP. After hearing daily issues regarding youth - labeled nuisances, troublemakers, and criminals at times - Ward brainstormed the idea that a change was possible. What if peace officers caught kids doing the right things instead of chasing after them only after they had done something bad. That kick-started the whole positive tickets movement.

Since the early 2000s, the program has formed a connection with kids in the community by catching them in moments where they have done right and the tickets are used as an ice-breaking connection to begin conversations and build foundations of trust in the community - especially between policing and young people.

How Mark and Ward connected

In their one-on-one discussion, Mark and Ward discuss the positive ticket program, how it didn't go over well in at first, how many trained law enforcement officers had to make a paradigm shift to go from charging offenders to meeting youth in a manner than could be a positive experience. There were still criminals that the officers had to bring to justice, but the positive tickets initiative was a gateway to relationships with non-offender youth; seeing them as assets instead of liabilities and helping guide the next generation.

Ward expressed how, over time, amazing results - especially at night and in the evenings when young people would be out - instead of scattering when they saw a police cruiser, they youth would approach the officers to get a free ticket. Sometimes it was a ticket to see a movie; other times free pizza or a game of bowling.

One thing we recognized right away is that we were giving out three positive tickets to every one negative ticket. So we thought that was pretty cool... 50,000 plus positive tickets a year. Those are potential engagements and who knows life changing, perhaps. - Ward Clapham