The Power of Positive Tickets

Have you heard of Ward Clapham? Nope, me neither, until I came across a cool news story.

Imagine that you're a kid riding your bike along the street. A cop pulls up beside you and waves you to pull over. Your heart starts beating faster. Did you do something wrong? Are you in trouble? Uh-oh!! The cop gets out of his vehicle with his ticket book in hand. With a smile, he writes you a ticket for wearing your helmet... a positive ticket... complete with a free movie ticket. Wow! What a concept.

Ward Clapham
(From Positive Tickets website)

This idea of writing positive tickets was the brainchild of former RCMP Superintendent Ward Clapham. He had noticed that Canadian youth saw the police as hunters, as the enemy... and he wanted to do something to alter that relationship. Rather than waiting for youth to commit a crime and reacting to that, Clapham encouraged his officers to be proactive and engage with youth from a different place, one of building relationships. You see, the tickets are really only the vehicle to allow police to build relationships with youth Over time, youth who engaged with police went from seeing them as the enemy to seeing them as friends. A paradigm shift.

Clapham likes to quote a former president of Ecuador who reportedly said:

Without a relationship, there is a problem for every solution.
With a relationship, there is a solution for every problem.

It really doesn't matter who is involved. Police and youth. Employer and employees. Israelis and Palestinians. Greece and Europe. If there is no relationship, then no matter what is suggested, everything will be a problem. But if there is a relationship, everything can be solved. Building relationships is key. Without relationships, it is easy to demonize the other side. They become the enemy and they are saddled with labels. The real secret to peace is to connect with a specific individual from the other side - to get to know someone on a personal level.