Wildrose crime task force hosting town hall meeting to gather public input

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As a part of their initial information gathering, the task force put out a survey asking whether residents are concerned with the state of Alberta’s justice system or if they’ve noticed an increase in crime in the past year.

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Monday’s town hall meeting, according to MacIntyre, is focused on gathering recommendations as well as general observations from the public on how they feel the justice system is, or isn’t, working for them.  

“Some of the things that we have heard from people is that they think our justice system is a revolving door for perpetrators and even the police have said quite often they know who it is that’s doing crime in a given area because they’ve arrested them multiple times before,” he said, adding that the frustration of citizens is wondering, then, why these people are back out committing further crime.

The most-recently-released Crime Severity Index from Statistics Canada shows that Alberta saw an 18 per cent increase in reported crimes in 2015, among those increases is a 12 per cent increase in violent crimes.

Adding to the motivation for the creation of the Alberta Crime Task Force is a staggering 35.5 per cent of charges stayed or withdrawn in Alberta.

“The severity of some of these crimes is increasing. We’ve had incidents now where criminals are coming on property armed or mid-day or they’re breaking into houses when there are still people in them. It’s becoming much more violent, much more dangerous and in much more volume.”

The meeting on Monday is set to talk about more than just rural crime as MacIntyre said urban crime numbers are spiking in the same way.

MacIntyre said the goal is to hear from Albertans as to what they’re experiencing as well as what they want to see to make communities look and feel safer.

One theme arising from preliminary talks includes that of policing being inadequate to cover crime, especially in the rural communities. The ask from citizens at this point has largely been for more assistance from government for things like rural crime watch or citizens on patrol.

“We realize it’s not just up to the police, it’s up to all of us. So neighborhood watch and these sorts of things where citizens are directly involved with taking care of themselves and their neighbors are good.”

Monday’s meeting will be held at Westerner Park in the Trailblazer Room and begins at 7 p.m. Any and all members of the community are invited.

MacIntyre adds that the task force has further town hall meetings planned for both Calgary and Edmonton.

You can visit http://www.wildrosecaucus.ca/crime-task-force/ to take the task force survey.