Vancouver police recruit online using YouTube, Facebook

The Vancouver Police Department is hitting the Internet in its latest effort to recruit younger members.

Supt. Steve Schnitzer said yesterday that the VPD's newly launched Facebook page and YouTube channel are meant to appeal to a younger demographic that may not get its information from traditional news sources.

"We know that younger people use web-based sites such as YouTube and Facebook two to three times a day, if not more,” he said. “This is their newspaper and this is the way they communicate.”
The Facebook page features officer profiles and lists the requirements for becoming an officer. One three-minute YouTube video shows a montage of police dramatizations accompanied by an epic-sounding score.

Schnitzer said this is the first time a Canadian police department has signed up for a YouTube channel and that the Facebook page is the “most comprehensive and involved Facebook website for any police department.”

While some have had difficulty locating the Facebook page, the links to both pages are available through vancouver.ca/police.