Edmonton police use old solutions on new problems

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Police are trying to use old solutions to cure new problems, says Edmonton's chief of police.

"In the past we have used incident-based policing. The emphasis has been on responding quickly and on treating each incident individually," Doug McNally told delegates to the Alberta Correctional Education Association's eighth annual conference.

McNally says the trend has swung to community-based policing. "We see the same problems recurring at the same addresses, especially in the high-crime areas of our city and we need to work on what is happening there.

"We will have more community-based police stations and two or three officers will be assigned to each specific area to get to know it intimately," he says.

New methods and revised attitudes to problem solving are also some of the findings which came out of the formation of Edmonton's Inner-City Violent Crime Task Force. Comprised of 18 agencies, the task force has attempted since its formation in Jan. 1990 to develop strategies to reduce violent crime in the inner city.

Since it was formed, crime has dropped 14 per cent in the target area - 96th Street between 102nd and 104th Avenues. "In comparison, in the city as a whole, the rate has gone up 16 per cent," says McNally.

Since the majority of the violent crime is associated with the 96th Street hotels or the streets and rooming houses near them, the task force made a number of specific recommendations dealing with the hotels: ? increased street and lane lighting to deter criminal activity and reduce the fear of crime, ? a ban on possession of knives in beverage rooms and ? a ban on possession of knives in beverage rooms and ? the elimination of hiding places for drugs in beverage rooms.

Since many Native people live in the downtown core, planning will continue to address the issues affecting them, says McNally. "In recent years, a large percentage of victims of crime and a high proportion of the accused have been Native people," he notes.

University of Lethbridge professor Leroy Little Bear said if educators are to reach Native people in conflict with the law, they must understand the differences between Natives and non-Natives and teach from both systems.

"We have to tune in to Native people's viewpoints and cultural beliefs."

He pointed out that Native and non-Native thinking processes follow different patterns.

Native culture is based on cycles, he notes, while "the dominant society thinks in a linear way, that there are only two ways to see things such as bad and good or day and night.

"Another difference is the feeling of time. Non-Natives celebrate Christmas Dec. 25 no matter where they are. But out sun dances are held in the same place every year, not 10 miles away or 100 miles away," says Little Bear. And preparation for the sun dance happens in conjunction with the phases in nature leading up to it.

The March 13-15 conference was held to discuss correctional issues and to make recommendations for federal planners, says Hector Pothier, conference publicity chairman.

More than 136 people participated in the sessions, which include a presentation by Pat Mulgrew of the Drumheller Institution and representatives of Lethbridge Community College on the training of Aboriginal people in wildlife and fisheries resources so they are effective and employable, says Pothier.