TACKLING CRIME

Red Deer RCMP want 10 more officers to help deal with rising crime
including gang and drug activities -- in a growing city.

One hundred and 15 RCMP members now work in Red Deer. Supt. Brian
Simpson asked city council on Wednesday to increase this to 125 in
the 2007 budget.

The additional officers and the eight extra civilian staffers Simpson
also requested would cost the city $846,000 more in annual salaries
and benefits.

Acting city manager Colleen Jensen said eight more police officers
were originally requested when the RCMP looked at future needs early in 2006.

But the city's high population increase of nearly five per cent in
2005-2006 wasn't known when the request was made. So the two
additional officers were added to keep up with growth, she said.

Crimes, complaints and traffic issues have increased with the city's
size, Simpson said. This and paperwork requirements "impacted how
police do business."

He said more officers are needed in a number of areas, including:

- - Two more officers for the general investigation section (GIS) would
also work on the street team to crack down on drug trafficking.
Simpson said the strong economy has attracted more organized crime.

- -Four additional officers and a supervisor for the general duty
section. Simpson said the detachment has many junior officers with
less than five years on the force. "For a lot of our watches,
supervision is key."

- -Another officer for community policing and one part-time officer for
the dog section.

- - A crime operations analyst to assist GIS and general duty officers
in identifying criminal patterns and activities. This helps in
understanding how gangs work and how illegal goods are trafficked.

Simpson believes this increase in officers will put the detachment in
a better position to crack down on everything from noise, litter and
traffic complains, to public intoxication, prostitution and drug houses.

He believes officers are already making a difference in controlling
disorderly behaviour on the bar strip and have sent a message to drug
traffickers.

While Simpson asked for 10 additional police officers, the city would
only actually be funding eight positions since the detachment is
chronically down a couple of positions due to attrition, temporary
leaves, transfers, secondments or other absences.

Simpson asked for eight more civilian employees to work an additional
5,850 hours annually on stenography, exhibits, court liaison, traffic
enforcement and custodial duties.

He said these workers would free up time for police officers to focus
on stopping crime.

Simpson also requested $20,000 for public education brochures on
crime prevention and $20,000 to investigate whether the detachment
should have its own dispatching service.

All RCMP detachments south of Leduc now rely on dispatchers from the
Southern Alberta Operational Communications Centre, who must respond
to all calls in the same manner.

Since the kind of complaints that police in larger centres receive
differ greatly from complaints in rural communities, the Red Deer
detachment wants to investigate if the public would be better served
if it ran its own dispatching service. This would allow calls to be
prioritized according to urgency.

The 2006 Crime Prevention and Policing Study recommended this be examined.

Council will debate funding requests later this month.