TASK FORCE CLEANING UP COMMUNITIES

Investigation Section Backed By New Act To Shut Down Illegal Activities

A new task force aims to make communities safer by outing
criminals.

Fred Sanford, director of the province's Public Safety Investigation
Section, said his five-member task force, comprised of former police
officers, investigates reports of illegal activities that compromise
the safety of residents in the surrounding neighbourhood.

The Department of Justice formed the special task force last year,
after the province passed the Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods
Act. This law aims to improve community safety by shutting down homes
and buildings that are regularly used for illegal activities.

Unlike criminal investigations that aim to prosecute offenders, this
task force is dedicated to evicting them to safeguard the surrounding
neighbourhood.

"The key factor in these investigations is public safety, so it
applies to any situation where illegal activity is adversely affecting
the community," he said. "In cases where someone is afraid to go out
at night, or doesn't feel safe in his, or her neighbourhood because of
what is happening at that address."

The act also holds property owners accountable for threatening or
disturbing activities regularly taking place on their property, and it
gives the task force members authority to quickly resolve the
situation through several avenues that bypass typical criminal
investigations, and supersedes landlord-tenant agreements.

The act identifies four illegal activitites that adversely affect
neighbourhoods: drugs, alcohol, gambling and prostition. Neighbours
can report illegal activity by calling a toll-free number and giving a
statement to police.

Sanford said once the investigating officer has determined that
illegal activity is habitually taking place at a residence, police can
serve the occupants with an eviction notice that forces them to
suspend the illegal activity and move out of the neighbourhood.

"We try to resolve the complaints out of court, so it's a shorter wait
time," he said. "Usually it's within two-to-three weeks of getting the
call."

The eviction notice is posted on the premises and orders the property
owner to take action to stop the problem, bars the tenants from
continuing the illegal activity, and evicts them. The cases are
generally easy to resolve, as it's in the landlords'interest to
cooperate with the investigation, according to Sanford. The cases are
built around a combination of the investigating officer and
neighbours' observations of open drug use and activity.

This type of investigation is particularly effective in rural areas,
where illegal activity quickly stands out, and most everyone can
quickly spot irregular traffic. Other signs that could indicate
illegal activity include unusual traffic, frequent late-night
visitors, and blacked-out windows, or drawn curtains.

Investigators gather witness affadavits and guarantee their identities
will remain confidential. Witnesses never appear in court, he added.
All these cases are cooperative investigations jointly conducted with
the local police and any appropriate evidence is passed on, so the
investigations frequently culminate in separate criminal charges.

In regular criminal investigations, the offenders are charged and then
released back into the community to carry on business as usual. But
because the police are able to post an eviction notice on the property
and remove the offenders from the neighbourhood, the illegal activity
immediately ceases.

The task force has received more than 130 complaints to date, and has
conducted more than 30 investigations across the province. The unit
has about 35 open cases. In December, police posted an eviction notice
on a house in Cornwallis that was known as being involved in illegal
drug activity.

Sanford said while the task force is still relatively new, it hasn't
seen much residual affect on the neighbouring communities with the
evicted dealers just setting up shop somewhere else.

"So far it seems that evicting them causes enough of an interuption in
their lives that it suspends the other activities," he said. "As time
time goes on this could change, but so far it has been quite
successful."