As 2022 comes to a close, Global News’ Chris Carr sat down with Saskatoon Police Service’s Chief Troy Cooper in a year-end interview to look at some of the challenges faced, and some of the changes made.
Here’s what Cooper had to say with regard to the newly implemented alternate response officers, addressing social issues, and violent crime in Saskatoon.
Q: 2022 was the year we saw city police make use of AROs or alternative response officers, members who take some of the pressure off of officers that deal with more urgent or violent crimes. What does this say about the direction we saw police take and the new direction police are taking now in 2022?
A: So our alternate response officers were what we thought was an innovative way to address some of the social issues and social pressures that we’ve seen in our community. It allows them to be present more often because they don’t get pulled away, for example, to do other things, but they can handle some of the administrative tasks normal police with professional police would have to be doing. They also are trained specifically around things like homelessness and addictions, in ways that are helpful, I think, as sort of a response to some of the things we’re seeing and allows the police, as you mentioned, to address crimes where there’s more violence and that sort of thing.
Q: So what does this say about the direction of policing? We will remember ’22 for many things, including homelessness, addictions, the opioid crisis, some of these social issues that do fall onto the desk of police officers. What does this say about how policing is evolving?
A: I think for us to address social issues, often they’re not criminal in nature. We have to do a couple of things. We have to have partnerships with other organizations that might be more suitable. We saw this year partnering with the tribal council, with fire, with the city and different solutions. We also saw the police looking for ways to reform what we do, including things like alternate response officers supporting peer peacekeeping programs and others. I think what we know is that if we’re going to reform policing to its core, to be crime prevention, to address criminal matters, we have to have some other solution to address all the other things that we get called to do. About half of the increased calls we saw this year were for social issues like disturbances and suspicious persons. And so I think if we’re going to continue to see that occurring, we need to find solutions such as alternate response officers.
Q: With respect to crime in the city, Saskatoon ranked six in Crime Severity Index in 2022, with violent crimes on the rise, 4,000 incidents in 2017 jumping to 4,500 incidents in 2021. How concerned are you about that trend?
A: Well, you know, actually, the Crime Severity Index last year was the best policing that we’ve had as a community since we started measuring that way. So when you look at raw numbers like how many offences we’ve had, you have to realize that our city is growing as well. And so when you consider crimes per population, we’re actually doing quite well, at least trending in the right direction. There’s certainly some challenges we have, but I think our investment in policing and public safety is going, you know, placing us in a good position.
Q: So are we heading in the right direction, then, as a city with respect to those issues?
A: I think what we’ve seen is that over the last decade, at least, the victimization rates, you know, which is calculated based on population, those are decreasing. Unfortunately, there’s still a lot of challenges for us, including violent crime challenges. But we are doing a good job, I think, in trending in the right direction.
Q: And looking ahead to 2023, what’s your biggest hope for the new year?
A: Well, we’re doing a sort of a resource review at the beginning of 2023 to sort of look down the road at what we’re going to need for policing resources. What we hope to see happen is a reduced impact of dangerous drugs in the community. That was one of the biggest things we were faced with in 2022. So hopefully we’ll be able to have some impact on the trafficking of some of those dangerous drugs, because they certainly impact the community in so many different ways, including what police are faced with and the mental health impact on policing and other first responders.
Q: What does that look like, that strategy in tackling that issue?
A: We’ve got a provincial strategy where we have partnerships there as well with health, with other service providers to make sure that our role, the policing role, of course, is enforcement and education. But we need to have other strong partnerships to make sure that there’s an awareness program, there’s an addictions treatment program and so many other supports because, you know, as opioids become more present, it’s going to be more of an impact on the community. And unfortunately, Canada’s becoming an export country with really relation to fentanyl and other opioids.