On Christmas morning, Jay Bru found a stroller through a window of one of the properties he owns in the city. After talking to neighbours, he found nine other windows had been smashed in the area overnight. Bru then saw a standoff between police and people inside a house along 109th Street.
Bru, who grew up in North Battleford and now lives in Scottsdale, Ariz., owns three properties in the city, and a stroller through his window hasn’t been his first experience with property crime. He’s had six windows smashed in two years, pluskicked-down doors, along with incidents including a “guy trying to kill his girlfriend who lit my house on fire.”
He’s received some money from what he’s been able to insure, but damage inflicted on some properties has been uninsurable. Bru estimates he’s spent thousands of dollars fixing damage.
“There are tons of crimes like that where they slip through the cracks and homeowners are just fixing their fence or fixing their window, fixing this, fixing that, nobody hears about it and you go on with your day. I’ve been doing that for ten years. I’m sick of it.”
Bru said that he along with others have tried to sell their properties, but being unable to get sufficient returns from them, they are stuck trying to rent out to tenants they hope they can trust.
Bru said he reached out to the city and RCMP, but hasn’t been satisfied with responses he’s received. Bru said he sent six emails to people at City Hall without receiving a response, and tried to contact Mayor Ryan Bater via social media.
Bru contacted the RCMP and said he was directed to four different people, and the message he received from an RCMP member was “the only way it can be fixed is if the community steps in.”
“I have houses in your city, they’re getting smashed, taxes are high, and I can’t find good renters, and I can’t sell my property," Bru said. “What’s the plan?”
The Plan:
North Battleford Mayor Ryan Bater, city manager Jim Puffalt, RCMP Insp. John Sutherland met for 40 minutes with the News-Optimist in the mayor’s office Monday morning.
The city’s plan for dealing with crime, including property crime, is multi-faceted and long-term.
“There are people in the community who are impatient with the consistency of the crimes that are occurring, and I feel it myself,” Herb Sutton said. “But unless you’re getting at reasons they’re doing it, it might not work.”
The research-informed approach, which involves major ideas found in the studies of sociology and criminology, looks at why crime occurs in the first place. Key among the findings include poverty, addictions and mental health are major factors in why the city has the crime that it does. The next step is then making sure people access appropriate quality services so they don’t commit crime in the first place.
Such goals, Sutton said, are “bigger than just what the municipality can handle,” and since crime in the city often involves people who don’t live in North Battleford, city leaders work toward securing provincial and federal funding. Some of Sutton’s recent work includes working with Public Safety Canada and organizing a forum that would bring together provincial and federal officials, as well as First Nations leaders to discuss what could be done.
Another approach is involving citizens to create safe communities.
“When I was a kid I grew up on the farm, we knew everybody in the area,” Puffalt said. “If there was trouble in the area, you’d go to somebody’s house and they’d look after you, and we’re trying to create that type of neighbourhood concept in North Battleford.”
One city initiative is Eyes That Care, a program in which residents meet neighbours and exchange information, keep an eye out for suspicious activity, and ensure cars and houses are locked. Participants receive a free solar motion sensor light, which is intended to deter suspicious activity. Neighbourhood Watch is another, as is Citizens on Patrol, to which Sutton dedicates substantial time. The responsibilities of Community Safety Officers has also increased recently.
Battlefords RCMP also has a formal plan found in a document titled “Battlefords RCMP Crime Prevention/Crime Reduction Unit: Our Goal Community Wellness & Community Outreach.” Priorities are separated into four categories: communities’ priorities, federal RCMP priorities, provincial RCMP priorities, and RCMP detachment priorities. Major themes among federal priorities are addressing youth (since youth cause much of the vandalism in the Battlefords) and a strategy to address First Nations. Outreach and communicating with residents and decision-makers are often cited in the plan.
Some of Sutton’s work involves assigning roles to community members so the RCMP can look after other crime.
“There are things that the RCMP are involved in, calls that they’re called to, that wouldn’t necessarily be criminal acts. They locate a lot of missing persons, children that run away from home, that’s not necessarily criminal things. Is that the best use of their time? They arrest a lot of people who are intoxicated on the streets that are not committing a crime other than being a nuisance.
Sutton looks to “find perhaps better ways, more suitable resources to put into those kind of things that allow the RCMP to spend their time focusing on major crime.”
Some people, Sutton said, don’t have intentions of breaking the law, while others do. Sutton said he wants the RCMP concentrating their efforts on the latter.
Sutton said determining the efficacy of the city’s efforts is difficult.
“Looking at the crime, there’s people saying it’s not working at all because crime continues. I would say it’s going to take some time.”
In addition to seeing the results of efforts, Sutton said it takes time for residents to get used to chatting with city leaders in an informal setting at barbeques. Sutton said more people are becoming aware of the city’s efforts and more people have been participating in events.
“I think it’s working in the sense that people are getting used to this kind of engagement and we just need to stay the course and continue with this.”
“It’s a challenge when there are people really frustrated with the ongoing crime and they want more immediate solutions,” Sutton said. “It’s hard to convince those people that we’re working on long term solutions and in fact they can be part of that.”
Some residents embrace the city’s long-term approach as forward-thinking and innovative. Other residents prefer short-term solutions, which directly show criminals being taken off the street. Ideas for short-term solutions range from increased police presence, increased surveillance, curfew, and even eliminating alcohol.
Sutherland said North Battleford already has the highest police per population ratio in Canada. He said the plan must be long-term because short-term solutions often involve displacing the problem, which often leads to continued crime.
“Displacing [bad tenants] isn’t the issue. The issue is getting them the services that they need. Those are social addictions issues, those need to be fixed and then the problem should fix itself. Very often it’s just easy to call the police and the problem goes away for 10 hours, 12 hours, a week. But until we fix the problem and the issues that cause it, it’s going to keep coming back.”
More police, Sutton said, can be a “double-edged sword” as more police officers often leads to increased statistics. Sutherland said while more police could reassure people, calls for service then increase. He said statistics used to calculate crime can be ambiguous and even ambivalent. High calls for service could indicate substantial crime, but Sutherland also said it could indicate high public confidence and that people are comfortable reporting.
Regarding property crime more specifically, there’s disagreement among some residents about who’s responsible. Some residents want the city to take responsibility since, one argument goes, people who commit property crime traverse public streets.
Puffalt said property owners are responsible for their own property, although the city offers supports. Sutherland said bad tenants is a risk landlords incur, and encourages tenant screening. Sutherland also said renters might have less of a vested interest in participating in the city’s programs, thus maintaining community-involvement is the landlord’s responsibility. Landlords can also join the crime-free multi housing group, which according to the Battlefords RCMP document, states the program “ranges from education for landlords in regards to screening/evicting tenants, along with providing safe/adequate living conditions for all renters.”
One grassroots effort to connect residents that often features property crime (and to which Bru posted photos of a stroller through his window) is the Victims of Crime Facebook page, which has 5,421 members as of Jan. 24.
The group, which serves as an online community watch, isn’t limited to residents posting photos of smashed windows and discussing what’s to be done. It also features community involvement. A recent post discusses organizing an event to discuss the recent suicides at the Comp. Other recent posts show discussions about compiling evidence and giving a presentation to council about the city’s crime. After Bru posted photos of a stroller through his window, Guy Turcotte offered a sheet of plywood to put in the broken window.
Criticisms raised against the group include the rapid spread of rumours and unconfirmed information, and the frequency of offensive posts. Another Facebook group with 1,408 members has emerged called North Battleford Victims of Crime (Non-Nazi version).
Some group members are often critical of the city’s efforts, and voice their opinion that the city doesn’t do enough about crime. Bater said he doesn’t participate on the Victims of Crime page, but said engaged citizenry is a good thing.
“People get frustrated and that’s totally understandable, and I share that frustration. My truck got broken into last summer as well. Property crime has been an issue in this community my entire life. I remember being a child in the 80s, you couldn’t leave your bicycle unlocked anywhere. In 1988 my house was broken into when my parents, my brothers and sister and I slept, so I understand the impact and how angry people feel.”
“But to suggest that not enough is being done I think is unfair. We have a comprehensive community safety strategy, we are going above and beyond in many areas as a municipality, not just to address the enforcement but also the root causes of crime.”
Bater said crime reduction won’t be a short-term fix.
“We’re not sitting on our hands, and I would challenge you to find any other municipality in the country that has addressed this problem to the degree that we have.”
Bater said many of North Battleford’s problems aren’t unique to the region, but are part of larger demographic trends. The city, being a hub of the region, attracts such individuals. Thus crime reduction can’t strictly be the city’s responsibility, the argument goes.
“Community safety and crime is one of the highest priorities of the city. That there’s no question. Every council meeting we’re talking about it. To suggest that it’s not a priority for the city is just wrong. But like I said people get frustrated and they want something done. We understand that.”
Residents have shown interest in learning about the crime in the city, and city leaders said learning about criminology is something residents can do. Sutherland said it could lead to “more armchair quarterbacking,” but “people have to understand what’s driving the work for the police here, that’s it’s not really a city responsibility, in some ways it’s not really a policing responsibility, it’s those underlying social factors that we need to get to.”
City leaders say they encourage residents with ideas to contact them directly. Bater said phone or email is preferred, and that he didn’t receive anything from Bru. Phone numbers and email addresses are listed on the city’s website.
Bru had a suggestion: possibly implementing a curfew. Bater said if residents want to speak before council, they should prepare a presentation. City council meetings are every second Monday, and the council agenda is released on the Thursday before the Monday.
Presentations, which are referred to as delegations, which would also likely get media attention.
City council meetings can be foreign and intimidating, and there are specific procedures for how council functions. The city and the News-Optimist can offer more information.
Sutton maintains the long-term solution is best for the city.
“I give a lot of credit to folks around the table for looking at the research and saying let’s pick the things that over the long term are going to make a difference in our community,” Sutton said.
