ONLY TEAMWORK CAN FIX PROBLEM

A lot has been said recently about our Police Service and the
perception of our city's safety. Over the past few weeks, Calgarians
have been focused on who's to blame and who's going to fix it.
Unfortunately, one person or organization will not solve our current
problems. Simply throwing dollars or police officers at the problem
will not solve the long-term issue. It requires a multi-faceted
solution to a complex problem. It will require teamwork from our city
council, the province, the federal government, and the police.

Fighting crime is like fighting cancer, the battle is best won at
prevention. There are two ways to clean up our city, one is prevention
and one is enforcement. The prevention is focused on addiction, family
violence, and social bad behaviour. The enforcement is better use of
police resources and laws that will deter gang and organized crime.

The issues facing the CPS are not unique to policing. The issues are
easily recognizable -- morale, recruitment & retention, and deployment
of resources. The new chief's success will be his/her's ability to
react quickly to these issues. The Police Service and Commission need
to focus on the better use of resource dollars and personnel. If the
issue is a lack of personnel, then deployment of your resources is
critical for success. We need to declare that front line officers are
our No. 1 priority. We need to focus on crime where crime is and
follow it where it goes. We can add more capacity simply by better use
of other peace officers, namely bylaw. We can take non essential
services like graffiti, minor traffic accidents and other crime
reports and delegate them to Bylaw. This will free up front line
officers to focus on preventative crime versus reactive. It's also a
great way to recruit bylaw officers to become Police officers. CPTED
(a process that police officers review safety features of building
permits) should be the responsibility of developers, not police. As
far as dollars, we should be investing in new technologies to improve
safety and effectiveness of our front-line officers.

Cities like New York and London invested in CCTV (closed circuit TV),
a Real Time Crime Centre, digital 911 calls that go directly to first
responders, and video/digital recording for police cruisers. This
technology has helped in the fight against crime by providing vital
information and surveillance to the authorities.

City Council needs to support our Police Service and reaffirm our
pride in our officers. Council needs to provide funding for resources
and create bylaws that will help police keep our city safe. I will be
asking in September for Council to review public safety on LRT
platforms and Plus-15 walkways. Council needs to have a zero tolerance
towards bad behaviour and petty crimes like graffiti and loitering.

The province needs to immediately address the issue of addiction.
Petty crime and physical violence is leading to the unsafe feeling
Calgarians have about their city. Instead of putting them in jail or
prison, give them a chance to clean up by forcing them into mandatory
addiction centres if they won't go voluntarily. It's time for the
province to step up to domestic violence by creating a Collaborative
Centre to address sexual and domestic violence. These victims are your
future addicts, homeless, and lost souls. Alberta leads the nation in
domestic violence and Calgary Police responded to over 11,000 domestic
calls last year. A sad statistic that in Calgary there are as many
domestic homicides as murders by gangs.

The federal government needs to end this legal system and bring back a
justice system. Appoint judges that don't believe in the current
"catch and release" program. If you can't recall judges, impose
minimum sentences. Drug dealers and people using weapons in an offence
go directly to prison. Review the Charter of Rights that give
aggressive panhandlers the right to intimidate you for your money.
Give police more authority to go after these petty thugs.

Calgary is now a big city. Let's not live in denial. We can learn from
other metropolitan cities like New York, London, or Toronto. We need
to do a better job in learning, anticipating, and adapting to an ever
changing environment. The solution is easy, the execution will be difficult.