The Vancouver Police Department (VPD) is helping to combat gender-based violence with the first B.C.-wide sex crimes symposium for officers and personal safety workshops for women that have now seen more than 15,000 attendees.
Senior Crime Analyst Ryan Villamin of the Special Investigation Section organized this month’s first province-wide sex crimes symposium at the Roundhouse Community Centre.
“Sex crimes can be some of the most challenging cases in a law enforcement career,” says Villamin. “I’m passionate about bringing people together, and I’m hoping this symposium will serve as a venue to engage the entire province in working together to fight and prevent sex-based violent crime.”
Sharing insights across B.C.
Presentations at the symposium included current legal challenges, criminal investigative psychology, and specific investigative techniques in sex crimes investigations.
“We want survivors to know there are people all over the province dedicated to investigating sex crimes. They can feel safe and supported, report a crime, and be taken seriously,” he says.
The goal is to bring law enforcement agencies across B.C. together, to exchange knowledge, share investigative techniques, and encourage networking and inter-agency collaboration.
“Offenders don’t always operate within clearly defined police jurisdictional boundaries. It takes a united effort across multiple agencies to investigate these types of crimes,” says Villamin.
Staff Sgt. Astrid Bonter attended the event and says she learned about offender psychology, which can help with suspect interviews.
“The symposium was an incredible learning opportunity,” she says. “Understanding offender psychology allows us to build interview scripts that yield meaningful dialogue. If we can understand why an offender may have committed a crime, we can work to prevent those types of crimes, safeguard survivors, and support offender rehabilitation in the future.”
VPD women helping women
In another initiative to come out of the VPD this month, officers in the Women’s Personal Safety Team are marking a milestone with more than 15,000 attendees passing through their program since 2012.
In a day-long session last week, more than 175 people attended — double the usual number.
“This is the largest venue we’ve had so far,” says VPD Insp. Colleen Yee, who leads the program with her sister, VPD Sgt. Alice Yee. “We opened up registration two months before and by day three, it was full.”
Hands-on learning
The Vancouver Police Foundation funds the workshop as part of its broader support for direct-to-community initiatives that turn frontline insight into practical programs. It teaches how to recognize potential predators, understand how they select targets, respond to the most common types of attacks, and report a crime.
“I demonstrate the movements on Alice very slowly. Then we ask participants to find a partner and practice them together. They’re always very enthusiastic,” she laughs. “The testimonials we hear afterward are heartfelt. One woman who had left an abusive 25-year marriage six years prior told us she had not been able to cry… no emotional release of any kind until she came to our class. During the presentation, she felt so much support from us and all the other women in the room that she realized tears were streaming down her face. She said she felt like something in her chest unknotted.”
A youth going through the program learned about signs of intimate partner violence and realized she was in an abusive relationship. She eventually broke up with her abuser. Her school liaison officer reported that her demeanor completely changed from head-down and timid to holding her head high, smiling and confident.
“Hearing these kinds of stories is what drives us,” she says.
The program has grown in the past 14 years from two to more than eight workshops per year. The Yee sisters also assisted in the development of similar programs in other police agencies in B.C., Saskatchewan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Ukraine, and New Zealand.
For more information, please see their website.
