NORTHERN DRUG UNIT TO LAUNCH NEXT MONTH

A new northern drug and gang enforcement unit will start work on Oct.
1, police and the provincial government announced Monday.

The unit, proposed about a year ago, will be seven officers strong and
focus on drug and gang activity, especially at the street level, from
Prince Albert to the Northwest Territories border.

City Police say the new unit should make it easier to follow criminal
activity wherever it goes, recognizing that Prince Albert is a hub of
drug and gang activity throughout the North and that gangs operate
across the entire region.

"Prince Albert certainly is a hub of community, of shopping and
resources and activities for the people out of the North and they
travel here. So for us to be just looking at Prince Albert without
looking at it as a regional issue is kind of naive and not very
effective," explained Insp. Kelly Stienwand of City Police.

"We're looking at this as a regional issue now, and we think we're
going to be much more effective."

The new unit is needed now, he said, partly because the problem of
gangs and drugs continue to get worse despite increasing arrests, and
right now there is no regional strategy.

"Our arrests are up two or three times what they were just a handful
of years ago, so we know that more arrests aren't solving the
problems," he said. "They are getting worse, but it's not a surprise.
It's because of the demographics of our province, the youth
demographics, there's more people in the ages likely to come in
contact with the law."

While everyone at the announcement Monday acknowledged that policing
alone wouldn't solve the problem, Mercer Armstrong, the RCMP officer
in charge of the project, said it could at least make people feel safer.

"If we can have some effect in making it safer for (people), then
obviously that's going to be a success factor for us," he said. "Our
members are extremely busy and don't have the time to do a
concentrated effort to deal with the street activity, so the team can
go in and supplement them."

The new unit will cost $750,000 in 2010, with an additional $380,000
being spent this year to get them off the ground.

City Police are contributing three of four new positions to the unit,
while four of the 16 new positions announced for the RCMP F Division
this year will go to the unit.

Minister of Corrections, Public Safety and Policing Yogi Huyghebaert
said the new unit has been needed for a long time.

"When I say it's (just) a start, I would like to see it probably be
expanded in the future if resources are available," he said.