SOME 'NEED TO BE INSTITUTIONALIZED'

In a wide-ranging interview with Province reporter Elaine O'Connor,
Vancouver police Chief Jim Chu offered these thoughts on the Downtown Eastside.

What can we do to improve the situation in the Downtown Eastside? "I
think we can make positive changes. It will take someone senior to
listen to the input from a lot of people and make decisions, because
you will never get consensus.

"I think what's really important is the ideology around
deinstitutionalization. For some it was good, but they went too far
and a lot of people who shouldn't be on the streets are out there. A
lot of these people cannot function in the community. They need to be
institutionalized. I'll say it. If you don't believe me, walk down
there, there are some sick people. That may sound cruel to some
people, but really you are killing people with their rights.

"We need more resources, especially in the area of drug treatment,
and certainly in the area of crime and disorder, if we are able to
improve the service to the mentally ill. Many of those individuals
are victims, but also chronic offenders have some issues in terms of
mental illness.

"The province, by opening up the Burnaby Centre [for mental health],
it has taken in some people that were problematic in terms of being
victims or causers of crime, and we're certainly looking for more
resources in that area. I think the Burnaby centre could be doubled
or tripled in capacity. That would help a lot.

"I also think institutions need to share information. In terms of
care for people with mental disorders, we often find that, because we
have information that we share, it's better than what the
mental-health-service providers have because they don't share. We've
been called to those situations where the person has gone berserk or
walked into traffic or flipped out in a restaurant. So better
information can also improve things in terms of delivery of service
to those people." How can we stop addicted chronic offenders? "We've
drawn attention to addicts going through the court system again and
again, and our hope is that with purposeful sentencing and even
greater capacity in the prison system, a lot of these addicts can get
treatment for their addictions. But putting an addict in jail for
only two weeks or three weeks, when they come out they are still
addicted and they are still going to commit a crime. We don't think
that is a good thing. Also, if an addict gets a longer sentence and
gets treatment and responds positively to treatment in terms of
managing their addiction, then I am all for letting that person out early.

"We are trying to get better information to the courts so that they
are engaging in more personal sentencing. That's important because we
are arguing that a lot of these people need longer sentencing because
unless they are in there for a year, they aren't going to get any treatment.

"The second thing for chronic offenders is our detectives actually
sit down with them and talk about their lives and what would get them
off their addictions. We have an officer at the community court
full-time that does a lot of this as well. If there are other ways to
problem-solve about addictions or criminal lifestyles, we're looking
for them, because sometimes jail is not always the answer.

"But when all else fails, you either incarcerate the person to
protect the community, or you just let them commit crimes and put
them in for a day, and let them commit more crimes and put them in
for another day. We don't believe that's the answer." Where should
the province concentrate resources? "It's always a tough call for the
provincial government because they have funding restraints. And I
think it's very important for the provincial government to analyze:
do they want to pay for housing and health care directly or do they
want to have other aspects of taxpayer-funded services like police
and ambulance pick up those costs? Lots of things need to be funded.

"Generally, though, one of the things that we have said, especially
in the Project Lockstep report, is that money seems to be going in
[to Downtown Eastside supports] from many directions, not just the
provincial government, but from private philanthropy, and we're not
sure that all these funds are being used in co-ordination. Perhaps we
could make an argument that existing money just needs to be used better."