By Andrew de Souza

Work continues to fight crime’s root causes

Mar 8, 2011 | 5:27 AM

Work continues through Prince Albert’s new initiative to deal with the root causes of crime and other activities police call “anti-social.”

During Monday’s city executive committee meeting, Prince Albert Police Service chief, Dale McFee, gave a presentation about a trip he and several other community leaders and social service workers took to Glasgow, Scotland to learn how that city had dealt with crime.

paNOW has covered the contents of his presentation and a program implemented since the group returned, known as “the Hub.”

McFee’s presentation was the first time it was generally opened to the public and he offered an update on the progress of the Hub.

He said since its inaugural meeting in January, police officers, city staff, Mental Health Services, Prince Albert Parkland Health Region staff, social services, RCMP, Saskatchewan Rivers School Division, Prince Albert Roman Catholic Separate School Division, addictions workers and others had made and begun work on 39 projects, from which 61 tasks were handed out to various agencies.

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He said some remained open, but most were in the process of being completed.

“They’re making a difference as we speak,” McFee said.

“We can address some of these things firsthand and do some early interventions before they’re in system.”

While he acknowledged the work done was a success, he noted the group was already running into cases where a short-term solution simply wasn’t the answer.

“A lot of these things are long-term. They’re social issues that need complex solutions,” said McFee.

He said the group was therefore hopeful to implement the second stage of the lessons learned from Scotland, which is the creation of a Centre of Responsibility (CORE).

McFee said CORE would share and analyze information to deal with prevention and treatment of the causes of crime instead of policing its symptoms. He said police would always play an important role, but more was needed.

“This is not soft on crime. You still need … things such as the Serious Habitual Reoffender Program, dealing with the tough issues of crime and dealing with all that stuff, but this is the other, balanced side of that. This is the side that we need to make sure we’re doing collectively together,” he said.

“You can’t deal with just one side of the strategy. If you’re going to get the results we need to get, you need to deal with all aspects of it.”

McFee said there were a few issues that needed to be dealt with before the CORE could reasonably be expected to exist. He said the first was to get a groundswell of support from the community.

However, he noted that with the more presentations he gave, the more people understood what the group was doing.

“When you see this, it’s really just common sense,” he said.

The second, and most important issue is funding, said McFee. In order to become viable, he said provincial funding would definitely be needed.

He pointed out that while it was needed, they weren’t going to worry about that quite yet. He said getting the support of the people and the community in law enforcement and social services was more important.

He said those things were already happening, especially with the recent agreement signed by ministers, health workers, educators, First Nations groups, and police chiefs across the province.

In the meantime, McFee said the Hub would continue with its work.

adesouza@panow.com