MORE POLICE WON'T SOLVE CRIME PROBLEM

Stelmach's Ministers Have Quietly Rolled Out Low-Key Package Of Social
Measures

His name is Stelmach. Ed Stelmach. And he'd like you to know he's
tough on crime.

Statistics that show crime rates falling don't distract him. Alberta's
top gun knows the citizens of his province have been unnerved by the
kind of brazen drug-linked violence that has plagued cities across
Alberta this autumn.

He knows, too, that with both the Liberals and New Democrats
constantly asking about police funding in the house, and with the
mayor of Calgary, Alberta's unofficial opposition leader, making
police funding a huge issue, he has to give the appearance of being as
tough on bad guys as anyone else.

So it's no surprise that in the first three weeks of the fall session,
Ed Stelmach spent a tremendous amount of time talking tough on crime.
He and his ministers announced funding for more police officers, for
more probation officers, for a program for provincial sheriffs to be
given the authority to shut down suspected drug houses and other dens
of iniquity, and for a plan to track hard-core repeat offenders after
release, criminals whom Stelmach referred to dramatically as "the
worst of the worst."

Yet at the same time, the Stelmach government has actually rolled out
over the last three weeks is a low-key package of remarkably
progressive measures to fight the root causes of crime, common-sense
initiatives aimed at keeping kids out of trouble and addicts out of
jail.

Among the announcements in the last three weeks:

- - A $747,650 grant for a Calgary pilot project to provide long-term
supportive housing to women and children fleeing domestic violence.

- - Funding for 20 addiction treatment beds, specifically reserved for
youth between the ages of 18 and 24.

- - A $757,000 grant to a pilot project aimed at finding permanent,
supportive housing for 80 residents of Edmonton homeless shelters.

- - An $18-million grant for Metis settlements, aimed at creating more
affordable housing, greater workforce participation, and improved
community policing.

- - A $4.8-million grant to a Calgary program that provides housing,
along with intensive medical, psychiatric, and social support services
to the most at-risk homeless.

- - A $60-million Safe Communities Innovation Fund for pilot projects
that prevent or reduce crime at a grass-roots level. Half the money
will go to community-police partnership projects, while the other $30
million will be for community-based initiatives like providing mentors
for aboriginal children or parenting support for families at risk.

- - Even the $10.4-million repeat-offender monitoring program that
Stelmach described as a crackdown on the "worst of the worst" turns
out to be more akin to progressive social intervention than Big
Brother surveillance.

The government plans to track 60 chronic recidivists after their
release from jail. But despite the premier's tough-guy bluster, these
criminals won't actually be the worst of the worst -- but the most
desperate of the desperate. The people targeted by this program won't
be murderers and rapists, but the sorts of repeat offenders who break
into 50 cars a night in order to feed a drug habit. And sensibly
enough, the program won't just be aimed at monitoring them, but at
providing them with housing, addiction treatment, and mental-health
care.

That's a lot of smart social spending -- but it's been announced
without much fanfare, largely cloaked in a cloud of over-the-top
tough-guy rhetoric. It looks as if Stelmach and his senior ministers
would rather play to people's fears, and play to the party's social
conservative base, than trumpet their commitment to progressive social
policy.

But I'm happy to embarrass the government, by pointing out that what
it's doing is a heck of a lot smarter that what it's saying. We can't
stop crime simply by hiring more police and prosecutors or building
more prisons. If we want to tackle violence, theft, and vandalism in
any meaningful way, we need to confront the root causes and social
determinants of crime, things like poverty, illiteracy, addiction,
homelessness, mental illness, and domestic abuse.

Teach a kid to read. Get that kid to graduate. Protect that kid from
abuse and neglect. And lo and behold, you'll have a kid who's far less
likely to get hooked on drugs or join a gang, or steal your car. We
don't often think of things like hot-lunch programs or all-day
kindergarten classes or adult literacy mentorships as crime-reduction
strategies, but they are.

This session, the Stelmach government has taken some great first steps
in the right direction. What a sad commentary it is on our times, and
our political culture, that our leaders seem to feel the need to
shelter behind the tired old crime-fighting cliches, instead of taking
this opportunity to help create a new kind of public
understanding.

As as society, we can't sit passively by and expect the police to
solve all our problems. All of us need to play a role in making this
community safe -- by fortifying our social defences. And that,
ironically, may be the toughest challenge of all.