Monday, it was the turn of Insp. John Sutherland and the RCMP to meet the Battlefords Rotary Club.
It was a chance for Sutherland to share with Rotary members some of the highlights and priorities of the Battlefords detachment. And it was also a chance for Rotary members to ask questions and share their concerns about crime and public safety issues in the community.
“Community engagement, and consulting with the community is key to our service delivery and making sure that we get the service delivery that people are looking for,” said Sutherland.
Sutherland shared with the audience some of the changes that have occurred at the RCMP.
Battlefords RCMP detachment has undergone a restructuring over the last couple of years. Sutherland noted there was an amalgamation of the city and rural detachments under one commander. That has led to some efficiencies as well as enhancements of the service the RCMP provides, including to rural residents.
“With the amalgamation of the detachment, combining our city and rural forces, we’ve provided 24/7 policing to the rural area here, as opposed to previously when members were on call when policing the rural area,” said Sutherland.
The inspector touched on a number of familiar topics, including moves by the detachment towards intelligence-led policing, initiatives done along with various other civic partners including the HUB, SAGE and Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design, and the force’s various crime reduction and traffic initiatives.
He spoke about the city’s continued high Crime Severity Index numbers, in response to a question from the audience on that issue.
“With the crime severity index, it’s a very complicated beast,” said Sutherland, noting it was influenced by sentencing and a lot of different factors.
He also noted that if the force has a successful year in reactive policing, with a lot of charges and arrests made and prosecuted, “that’s going to drive your number up,” he said.
At the meeting was Ames Leslie, newly-elected Mayor of the Town of Battleford, who asked about proactive policing and analytics. He asked how long it would take to see an improvement if a detachment analyst was taken on.
“I think it will affect different things in different ways,” Sutherland said.
He said it would affect patrols and identify hot spots where crime is occurring.
That would see an immediate impact. But as for the social issues that need to be addressed to prevent crime, “that’s a long term thing,” Sutherland said.
“The situations we see here didn’t develop in a year and won’t go away in a year.”
One key issue discussed during the extensive question and answer session that followed was on the curfew bylaw, a hot topic for candidates in the recent municipal election.
Wayne Ray, defeated council candidate in North Battleford, raised the issue at the noon-hour luncheon.
He noted he had heard stories where police would pick up kids under the bylaw and return them home to their parents, only for the kids to go in the front door and then leave again out the back.
“How do we break that revolving door?” Ray asked, adding “somehow we’ve got to break that cycle.”
But Sutherland noted the challenges of enforcing provisions of the curfew bylaw, saying it was ineffective and that arrests under that bylaw could potentially even violate the Charter of Rights.
“There’s always a question of a curfew being something that would stand up to a test under the Charter,” said Sutherland to reporters.
He believes there are community initiatives over time that can help the situation. “Things like the Boys and Girls Club that keeps kids busy, different community activities and engaging the youth and parents to solve the issue that way through education instead of enforcement.”
Sutherland’s meeting with the Rotary Club came on the same day that both councils in Battleford and North Battleford were to be sworn in.
Sutherland expressed confidence about the working relationship between the RCMP and the new councils and mayors on both sides of the river.
“We have a phenomenal relationship with the city and the town, our First Nations partners, everybody in this detachment,” said Sutherland. “I think it’s only going to continue to grow and get stronger.”
