Concern about violent crime as an issue has been sparked after a spate of violent acts in The Forks in the week leading up to the start of July. Smyth said the calls for service at the popular public gathering place and tourist destination are in line with past trends and relatively small in the overall picture of crime in Winnipeg. “In terms of aggravated assaults, that’s not new – it’s concerning… we’ve had stabbings there in the past, we’ve had homicides there in the past,” he said. Some, however, are concerned that Smyth’s comments normalize a hopeless status quo. “A, it’s true, but B, that’s horrible — the fact that this isn’t new and that we’re still sitting here without a really good strategy,” Sel Burrows said in an interview Sunday. Burrows, a longtime community advocate and one of the founders of the Point Douglas Powerline, said the fact that there are even some acts of violence in The Forks is “horrific, absolutely horrible.” Sel Burrows says creating a culture where criminals feel uncomfortable doing business can make communities safer. He wants to see the police work harder to involve the community in solving crime problems. (Holly Caruk/CBC) “The message is, ‘there’s not much we can do, this is normal, this happens,’ instead of saying, ‘hey, we police officers need to look at some different ways of doing things,’” Burrows said. “The high crime rate [has] become normal. And once we start saying, okay, it’s normal, we’re not going to stop it. And Winnipeggers – all Winnipeggers – should be disgusted with the high crime rate we have,” he said. Burrows said police – including Smyth – need to do more to engage community members to help tackle the problem and make it easier to work with police. “We need to get people who live and work in areas involved in crime prevention. It’s very basic and very cheap,” he said.
Making the city safer means investing in social supports, not police: professor
University of Winnipeg criminologist and associate professor of criminal justice Kevin Walby said Smith, supported Friday by Winnipeg Police Council president Coun. Markus Chambers, is not being honest about the reality of Winnipeg’s situation. “The situation is not normal and policing is not going to deal with the kinds of harm, violation and conflict that we see in Winnipeg,” Walby said, acknowledging that there is “a lot of angst” in the city, from economic inequality to mental health issues, lack of financial housing and substance dependence. But the two officials are at odds over how to handle the situation as they must promote the police service and fight for financial dollars to support it, Walby said. “They don’t need to look at all the other evidence that suggests policing, criminalization, incarceration is really hurting our community. It’s just adding more harm to the equation.” Criminologist Kevin Walby says long-term safety in Winnipeg will require investing in community support, addiction treatment and affordable, safe housing rather than policing. (Aidan Geary/CBC) Walby is an advocate of investing police budgets in social services, community support and housing. He said civic leaders and politicians need to work on the social issues that underpin crime problems. We are not going to criminalize our way out of any kind of rise in transgression and conflict. The more we lock people up, the more we tear apart the social bonds that remain in our communities,” Walby said. “The more we criminalize people, the more we increase divorce rates, the more we increase unemployment, [the] We make it harder for people to actually survive. And they will be more upset in a few months. In a few years. So it’s actually a recipe for higher crime rates in the long run, with money for policing,” Walby said. The service currently covers more than a quarter of the city’s $320 million operating budget. On Friday, a report was filed with the city council’s finance committee projecting a $7.5 million deficit for this year due to rising costs. And that reality paves the way for officials to say more police resources are needed and the budget is growing, Walby said. “The chief of police … and the head of the police board will come out and say Winnipeg is in crisis. There is so much conflict, so much transgression, almost as a kind of camouflage for the culture of cost overruns in the police service,” he he said. It’s a situation playing out with police forces across the country, he added. He said taking a long-term, genetic approach to funding and addressing the root causes of crime will make the city safer in the long run. He doesn’t think the police could just be abolished overnight. “How can we live in a safer society if we continue to throw all the money we have into the police and the roads on cars? Those are the two things we spend all our money on in the city. Yes, of course, it will be a violation , anxiety and conflict … because we’re not meeting people’s needs,” Walby said.
Police statistics for the past year show an increase in calls for service, the chief says.
This week, the agency plans to release its statistical report for 2021. Smyth said Friday that the agency handled more than 230,000 calls for service that year. Nearly 10 percent of those were for officers to conduct welfare checks, he said. “People call us for help a lot.” Chambers said the police board will seek input from the community through engagement and surveys in the coming months. He wants to see a downtown safety summit where various groups can discuss how to fight crime and work to eliminate Winnipeg’s stigma as a crime city. “We need to rethink what community safety looks like in our city,” Chambers told reporters after Smith finished taking questions. “And to participate in our community in terms of actively working for the safety and well-being of the community.”
