CAT program to be extended as part of Chief Knecht’s crime reduction strategy

Edmonton – Edmonton Police Chief Rod Knecht admits his first 6 months on the job have been busy and challenging, but sees some success in the crime reduction strategy employed since he took over the job.

In a year end interview with Global’s Carole Anne Guay says the Community Action Teams introduced in September have shown impressive results.

The CAT program selected high crime neighbourhoods and used specific strategies targeting a range of issues to help reduce crime in those neighbourhoods.

“We went into this not really knowing how it would turn out. We found in our deployments, when we go in the community stays fairly secure for about a week and a half after we’ve pulled out. We’ve find when we return to those communities, because we’ve done that in a secondary deployment, and it’s sustaining safety for two and a half weeks.”

Knecht also says the program has helped get a number of street workers get to a safer environment and getting the necessary medical and mental health attention needed by those in the community and he says that has helped reduce crime as well.

“What we are seeing is a sustained commitment from the community partners, the special interest groups, the provincial government, the municipal government are stepping up to the plate and are helping us. So we go into a community and make it safe by a huge presence of police officers,” explains Knecht. “And then we bring in those support networks that help people get the medical assistance they need. We have run into a number of people who don’t know how to access the medical system here. Either because of mental health issues or other issues.”

The EPS has conducted three deployments so far and the plan was for it to stop in December but now will be extended to August of 2012.