POLICE PROJECT REDUCES CRIME: MAYOR

Lastman Wants 'This City To Be Safest In The World'

Community Action Policing has done a tremendous job targeting street thugs,
prostitutes and drug dealers, Mel Lastman said yesterday, calling on the
province to come up with more money for the campaign.

During a walkabout in Toronto's Junction area, Lastman said the provincial
government's downloading of services on to communities has decreased the
money available for crime fighting.

He suggested Ontario come up with more money so police can expand programs
such as CAP, which he said has been successful in reducing crime.

Since this year's program was launched June 12 in Toronto, Lastman said,
police have arrested 175 people, issued 2,210 tickets and made contact with
more than 6,000 people. The program ends in September.

Lastman said last year's campaign reduced crime an average of 13.8 per cent
across Toronto. Nighttime crime downtown went down by more than 20 per cent
and crime in the Junction area fell by 60 per cent, he said.

"Our Community Action Policing initiative has been a tremendous success," he
said. "This is a unique program of target policing."

Lastman said the project's goal is to allow people to feel Toronto's streets
are safe day or night.

"I want this city to be the safest in the world," he said.

Lastman said the CAP program is aimed at criminals - and not the homeless.

"Police involved in the CAP program help those who can't provide for
themselves to find a place to sleep," he said.

He said police have been working with residents to clean up high crime
areas. "There is no better way to do it than to have police officers in
uniform walking the streets or driving the streets on bicycles," he said.

Toronto police Chief Julian Fantino, who accompanied Lastman on a walk of
the Dundas St. and Keele St. area, said the CAP program has police working
with citizens, service organizations and political leaders.

Fantino said officers working in CAP are from the local division and try to
find the best solutions to community problems.

"They are working to improve the quality of life for people in local
neighbourhoods," he said.

Councillor Norm Gardner (North York Centre), head of the police commission,
said people can walk the streets without feeling intimidated.

During the walk, Helen Ness, co-chair of the 11 Division police community
liaison committee, said residents began work in August, 1998, to reclaim the
Dundas St. and Keele St. area from criminals.

Hess said a small garage on a side street which had become a magnet for drug
dealers and prostitutes was demolished.

Staff Inspector George Cushing said the initiatives chased away the
criminals who had controlled the street.

Since the cleanup, he said, local residents have held street parties and
walks through the neighbourhood to demonstrate the community is safe.

A police spokesperson said CAP programs can only be put into communities
where the residents ask for them.

They don't identify sites so neighbourhoods are not stigmatized.