Speaking to the Ajax-Pickering Board of Trade Thursday morning, the chief revealed his Whitby home was broken into by a 14-year-old.

"He broke into seven homes. Mine was the only one where no one was home," Chief Ewles stated. "It's fortunate no one was home as either he or I would have had to have had something surgically removed."

The youth, he added, had been "caught up in a video game" and was dressed like a knight templar, complete with sword-like weapons.

Chief Ewles spoke about the change in focus for Durham police, toward crime prevention rather than dealing with the aftermath.

"Policing is traditionally reactionary. We run out, deal with an issue and rush back to file a report. But, what have we accomplished," the chief asked. "We deal with the symptoms. How do we combat crime when we're simply counting statistics?"

Instead, Durham police will try to "get to the root cause of crime," Chief Ewles said. "Our main duty is to prevent crime. We have to be more efficient and effective in everything we do."

The police do analysis of crime statistics to get to the root cause of a crime, he said.

An example was in downtown Whitby, where garbage pickup was on Fridays and large numbers of people would leave bars on Thursday nights, leading to vandalism and trash strewn all over the downtown.

The solution, he said, was to move the garbage pickup to Tuesday.

In Ajax and Pickering, there were problems with youths in parks at night, so the police worked with local officials.

"These are our parks, not the people who want to drink beer and smoke drugs," Chief Ewles said. "We've very pleased with the results we've seen."

Durham police have four main priorities -- dealing with youth, roadway safety, the exploitation of persons and property crimes.

"We made a commitment that Durham Region would be the safest place to live, work and play. If we have a safe community, people will want to choose to live, work and play right here in Durham Region," Chief Ewles said. "It will take us time and I'll be candid, we are going to make mistakes.

"Our challenge is to learn from our mistakes, to fail forward. We look for your help," he added.