By Glenn Hicks

Crime Reduction Teams fully operational in P.A. and N.B.

Oct 22, 2018 | 5:00 PM

The RCMP’s much-anticipated Crime Reduction Units are now fully operational in North Battleford and Prince Albert to deal with rural crime and to ease the stress on the existing police.

The two special seven-member teams were the culmination of a year of planning and training as the RCMP responded to a call from the public and rural leaders for the police to get on top of the burgeoning rural crime wave.

The units are deployed — often for days at a time — as requested by local RCMP detachments across the region to target gangs, chronic offenders and to execute warrants, among other activities. They have their own distinctively marked vehicles.

Already there have been results in North Battleford, according to the RCMP. Twenty-seven arrests were made in a five-day span in recent weeks when both units were deployed there. As a result, 25 new Criminal Code charges were laid.

“What’s specific to these teams is that they’re not attending to all the calls or the files at the detachment; they’re going in there to target specific people or activity,” RCMP Insp. Tammy Patterson told paNOW and battlefordsNOW. “They have the luxury, I would put it, to target those individuals and initiatives we want to target.”

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The units were given full operational status after a three-month trial run February through April.

“Based on the need, the units are not going to be in and out; they’re called in and will remain in a community for a pre-determined length of time, typically a number of days,” Patterson said.

She added part of the strategy was their high-visibility when on an assignment, not only to send a message to criminals but to offer a “better sense of safety and security to the community that they’re in.”

Asked if she felt any pressure to produce immediate results, Patterson said there was a desire for success from the individuals and do to so on behalf of the communities they serve.

“We’re tracking the stats and we want to be able to show all the good things we’re doing in concert with the members out there in those detachments,” she said.

glenn.hicks@jpbg.ca

On Twitter:@princealbertnow