By Andrew de Souza

Lessons from Scotland implemented in PA

Feb 4, 2011 | 5:37 AM

Police, school boards and social service organizations in the city have begun implementing lessons learned on a recent trip to Scotland with the hope of reducing crime and its root causes.

The interdepartmental group is known as the Hub, is chaired by city bylaw manager Ken Hunter, and comprises of representatives from the police service, school board, and various social service departments.

They had their first meeting on Thursday morning.

The current mandate is to bring forward cases that can be dealt with immediately and with as many social service groups as possible to assist the people involved in the best way possible.

As an example, the police brought forward a domestic assault case. Working with those present, it was organized for housing services to look at issues with the state of the home, city services to look at cleaning the area and the school board to make counselling services available for the kids.

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“If there’s issues that have quick fixes, that you can get off the plate, that are maybe frustrating for the citizens, frustrating for the agencies or the front line workers, we can bring it to the table and get all the agencies to respond before it spins into a bigger issue,” said Dale McFee, chief of Prince Albert Police Service.

“There are a lot of those anti-social behaviours that with a quick response we can actually alleviate and fix them.”

The Hub is the first part of the larger plan adopted from when a group of Prince Albert representatives travelled to Glasgow, Scotland to learn the best practices in a community facing almost identical problems as Prince Albert.

While the Hub is the forum for dealing with immediate issues, the group plans on implementing what would be known as the Centre for Responsibility, or CORE.

There, the groups will be working together to share information, compile data and work to deal with the root causes of crime in the community.

“We’re trying to get a new way of thinking about it,” said McFee. “This isn’t about saying somebody was wrong. To this day, we’ve done a lot of things right.

“But what we’ve also recognized is that it’s the inputs we can’t keep up with. So even though we do those things right and continue to do those things right, we’ve got to do more of something else.”

The Hub is set to meet Tuesdays and Thursday. Meanwhile, the city will work towards implementing CORE by securing funding and continuing to speak with agencies and the province.

To learn more about the work being done in Glasgow and the system the city is looking to adapt visit the Glasgow Centre for Safety & Services.

See related:
Local police pick up Scottish tips on crime prevention

Prince Albert looking to Scotland for crime prevention

adesouza@panow.com