CIVIC STUDY A CRIMINALLY DOPEY IDEA

I'm as alarmed as anyone about how much this city has changed in the
last decade or two.

Homelessness is escalating. There's more crime and far too much of it
is gang-related. Crimes that make the headlines are often increasingly
violent and shocking.

Drug use seems almost rampant among a certain segment of the
population. The murder rate has increased dramatically from 10 years
ago.

So, I welcome anything to make Edmonton safer.

Enter a spanking new group that will study the problem. It's the
Edmonton Task Force on Community Safety that was dreamed up by Mayor
Stephen Mandel and unveiled this week at a City Hall news conference.

It includes more than two dozen high-profile people including former
police chief Fred Rayner, community services department head Linda
Cochrane and University of Alberta business school dean Mike Percy.

The group has a $400,000 budget to come up with solutions to
Edmonton's crime problem.

A headline on the news release read: Preventative approach links
solutions to root causes.

"We need to broaden our approach to crime prevention so we create a
city where all citizens feel safe," said Mandel. "We spend a lot of
money on police ... the time has come for us to begin to invest some
dollars into crime prevention. We want ideas and strategies that ...
can prevent criminal behaviour in the first place."

Noble-sounding sentiments. I wish this group well. Maybe it's the
cynic in me though, but isn't there a danger we're just falling for
another study trap?

How much more research needs to be done to figure out the causes of
crime? Here's my 41-word take on that: Often, crime is rooted in the
fact people grew up in crappy homes. They were neglected and turned to
other ways to survive, including to street gangs where they can make
some quick cash and feel a sense of self-esteem.

Do we need another study to figure that out? Besides, just a year ago
we saw the release of a report by Alberta's Task Force on Crime
Reduction and Safer Communities,which had a $1.5 million budget.Our
police chief, Mike Boyd, was on that task force.

To implement some of that task force's recommendations the province
set up Alberta's Safe Communities Secretariat (www.justice.gov.ab.ca/safe/).

Even as we prepare to spend $400,000 on a new study to tackle
"community safety," social programs that could do something right now
to help solve the problem are being starved of cash.

Social workers are paid paltry sums and burn out. So there's a
shortage of them working the front lines in the gritty fight for
community safety.

Karen Erickson, who runs an organization called the Community Solution
to Gang Violence (www.csgv.ca), says the quickest way to make a city
safer is to provide more funding for those front-line social workers
who toil for dozens of different groups. Erickson says she sees lots
of heavyweights on the mayor's task force but little or no
representation from street-level workers.

She feels the core problem could be best tackled by listening closely
to social workers who soldier on in the front lines of the fight for a
safer community.

"They're a lot closer than anyone to knowing what those kids need,"
she says. "We need to take their knowledge and make sure certain
policies are passed."

The mayor's task force is slated to bring back a report by June. I
guess those front-line social workers will just have to hold on until
then.