TWO CITIES, TWO MAYORS ONE BIG PROBLEM

How Vancouver And Surrey Plan To Tackle The Scourge Of Addicts And
Thieves

The mayors of British Columbia's two largest cities are promising new
strategies to combat property crime and street disorder caused by an
epidemic of drug addiction.

The strategies, outlined by Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan and Surrey
Mayor Dianne Watts, combine elements of liberal and conservative
approaches to crime fighting.

Both mayors say they will lean heavily on liberal anti-crime policies
such as community courts that steer addicts into drug treatment and
maintenance programs, housing and other services.

Both also want to clean up the streets. Sullivan in particular is
under pressure from the business community to curb aggressive
panhandling and open drug-dealing and use, but he stopped short of
endorsing Broken Windows-style campaigns in which homeless people and
drug users are swept out of target neighbourhoods.

However, Sullivan said he wants to refocus all city departments,
including the police department, on eliminating "street disorder."

Watts said Surrey may place surveillance cameras in high-crime areas
to fight drug-dealing.

Both said they want to get at the root cause of much of their cities'
crime: drug addiction.

Watts said: "Like any large city that has grown as fast as we're
growing, we are experiencing issues around drug addiction,
homelessness, gang activity, youth causing havoc in the community,
nuisance problems as well as drug-related crimes -- auto theft,
property crime, break-and-enter, those sorts of things.

"Until we begin to deal with our drug addiction issues, we're never
going to see a reduction in crime."

Sullivan said he will push to expand controversial drug maintenance
programs, which he said have worked in Switzerland, Germany and the
Netherlands, eliminating the need for drug addicts "to get money quick
to deal with their addiction."

About 10 per cent of drug addicts quit on their own, he said, and
another 10 to 15 per cent can quit with treatment programs.

"So we have to figure out what we will do with the rest. And drug
maintenance or substitution is scientifically proven to dramatically
reduce disorder and crime for the majority of addicted people who will
not be able to succeed in long-term abstinence."

That includes existing methadone programs for heroin addicts as well
as expanded free heroin programs, which Sullivan said lead to
"outstanding outcomes for public disorder and safety issues."

It may also include "stimulant maintenance" -- providing crack cocaine
and crystal meth addicts with safer drugs, eliminating their need to
steal or beg for money to feed their habits.

"It offers the most hope of reducing the disorder and crime caused by
crack cocaine and crystal meth addiction," he said.

Sullivan said there is an urgent need for housing for people living on
the street or in slums.

"We need to do better," he said. "And I personally am not willing to
just sit around and wait for the provincial and federal governments to
take the responsibility. We have to start being catalysts in finding
ways to do things more effectively, possibly even looking to the
private sector for some help."

Sullivan said he is enthusiastic about establishing a community court
that goes beyond a drug-court pilot program that has been running in
Vancouver.

Through a community court, drug addicts charged with crimes would be
referred to agencies to identify their problems, provide counselling,
get them into methadone or other drug maintenance programs, find
housing and jobs, and arrange for them to provide restitution -- such
as helping with street clean-ups -- to the community.

Sullivan said he wants the police and other city departments to get
more involved.

"Most citizens are shocked to discover that the police don't consider
street disorder their mandate," he said. "But I believe it should be."

He said he will depend on Coun. Kim Capri, a former executive director
of the Crime Prevention Association, to help shape his anti-crime policies.

Sullivan said he will need help from the provincial and federal
governments, especially in financing new housing.

"We have 16 sites sitting empty, waiting for provincial and federal
funding to help us develop the land," he said. "And we have SROs
(single room occupancy units) that are visited regularly by
international delegations who go away appalled with the deplorable
conditions that our most vulnerable people are forced to live in."

Sullivan said he is trying to sell his vision to the senior
governments as a way to clean up Vancouver streets before the 2010
Winter Games.

"But I want it to be very clear that I am not cleaning up the streets
for the Games," he said. "I'm using the Games as a catalyst to clean
up the streets for the city for the long term."

He said he hopes to unveil detailed proposals this
fall.

Sullivan and Watts both intend their anti-crime programs to apply to
their whole cities, not only visible problem areas.

Watts has just returned from leading a delegation to Britain to study
anti-crime approaches there. One idea she is bringing back is
surveillance cameras in public areas, of which Britain has installed
several million.

She said cameras in areas with significant drug dealing, gang activity
and other problems can be used to plan tactics for fighting crime.

But like Sullivan, Watts put the emphasis on social approaches,
starting with the schools.

"We in this country have not been paying attention to early childhood
intervention, and prevention and education when children are young,"
she said. "And those are two key elements to deal with the root causes
of crime."

Her U.K. delegation included school district officials, as did a drug
crime task force she set up earlier.

Watts also wants to establish a community court in Surrey. Early
priorities include establishing a data base of treatment and other
drug- and alcohol-related programs available in Surrey, and creating a
community court steering committee.

She said a community court has to be able to direct drugs addicts to a
range of services.

"In order to disrupt the pattern of behaviour, you need to make sure
that the drug addict has treatment, that they have support in dealing
with any number of issues, that they have housing and that they have
job training," she said. "It's a continuum of care. You can't do it in
isolation."

Asked whether that might include drug maintenance, she said methadone
maintenance would be part of the package. But it won't be exactly like
Vancouver's approach.

"Here in Surrey, we want to make sure that we're dealing with the
issues that our community faces. You have to realize we're different
from Vancouver insofar as we do not have a downtown eastside. We have
the most children per capita in the province. Our issues are somewhat
different."

Watts said Surrey's crime problems -- and solutions -- are not based
only in Whalley, the usual focus for crime issues in the city.

"We have people misusing drugs in Whalley, in Cloverdale, in Newton,
in Fleetwood, in South Surrey," she said. "We have to look at the
entire city. We don't want to be pushing the problem from one
community to the other and chasing them around the city."

Watts said she hopes to formulate a strategy this fall -- organizing
meetings begin in September -- and have a program ready to go early
next year.

Like Sullivan, she said her city will need help from the provincial
and federal governments.

"We can't do it without partners," she said. "We learned that in
England -- the necessity for a multifaceted approach with all of the
partners working together."

THE CRIME GAME

Crime rates in British Columbia fell throughout the 1990s by a total
of about 20 per cent, rose slightly in 2002 and 2003, leveled off in
2004 and fell again in 2005.

Here are the crime rates for the last five years in Surrey, Vancouver
and all of B.C., shown as the number of criminal offences per 100,000
population.

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

Surrey 134 127 133 131 127

Vancouver 131 125 127 132 117

B.C. 115 117 125 125 119

Source: Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor-General