Loney Announces Forum and
Plan to Cut Crime
WPS Dispatches to be Reduced by at Least 10 Percent
Released September 13, 2022
WINNIPEG, Manitoba – In advance of his Public Safety and Homelessness Forum tomorrow at the Norwood Hotel, Mayoral candidate Shaun Loney announced a plan to reduce police dispatches by at least 10 percent. Loney has based his target on extensive experience working cooperatively with police and the nonprofit and social enterprise sectors across the country to successfully lower crime levels.
“I’ve been hiring ex-gang members since 2006,” said Loney referencing his career in the social enterprise sector and his role in co-founding BUILD, Purpose Construction and the Social Enterprise Centre – all of which are geared towards hiring people with barriers to employment.
“The vast majority of people who are committing crimes do so over and over and over again,” said Loney. “We need to interrupt these cycles by ramping up proven strategies and we need to do it NOW.”
Loney noted that the Winnipeg Police Service (WPS) was dispatched 234,058 last year - over 640 times on average each day. Winnipeg’s violent crime severity index is almost twice the Canadian average.
“Arresting the same people more often has not proven to be an effective deterrent, all it’s done is increase our taxes,” said Loney. “Making actual progress on reducing crime will be determined by our ability to support people in need and provide them with mental health services, addiction treatment, housing and jobs.”
“My plan will free up the WPS to apply more focus on violent crimes (such as robberies and sexual assaults); property crimes (such as break-and-enters, theft and arson); and other crimes such as possession of child porn and the distribution of crystal meth,” Loney said.
“If we could arrest our way out of this problem we would have done so a long time ago,” said Loney, noting that 70 percent of people who get out of jail are back in contact with law enforcement within two years.” Manitoba has amongst the highest recidivism rates in the country.
“The City has lots of options at our disposal,” said Loney, “We need to use all the tools.”
Loney invited Winnipeggers to attend a public forum beginning at 7 p.m. this Wednesday, September 14th at the Norwood Hotel in St. Boniface to share their experiences and ideas on how our city and neighbourhoods can be safer.
For his part, Loney released a multi-pronged plan to address the City’s escalating crime rate that does not reduce consequences for people that have committed crime, but does create ways for them to break their cycles:
Add 1,000 Social Enterprise Jobs – Based on the successful BUILD model, the plan will engage with repeat offenders who want to work and who have a desire to leave criminal life behind them.
Address Homelessness – 15 to 30 percent of WPS calls are in response to mental health crises and homelessness. Loney’s previously announced innovative plan to address homelessness will cut non-emergency workload significantly and free-up the WPS to focus on serious crime. Loney released data to show the top 100 people who experience homelessness will come in contact with police over 3,000 times each year.
Improve Transit Safety – Loney will hire a new group of Transit Peace Officers who don’t just enforce a code of conduct for transit riders and fare collection, but also to connect people who repeatedly pose a risk on buses to customized support to break cycles of mental health, addiction and other problems. In addition, priority will be given to launch a mobile app to empower riders to quickly and discreetly report incidents of harassment, crime and violence.
Reduce Bike Theft – Loney will make it harder for bike thieves to target Winnipeggers by implementing a new bike registration system and dedicating a police officer to combat organized bike-theft rings.
Training for Diversity – As existing officers retire, Loney will push for them to be replaced with people with more diverse skill sets to reflect the changed nature of police work and to add more effective response options.
Provide Safe Consumption Site – As Mayor, Loney will work with all parties to establish a Safe Consumption Site.
Loney released data from Victoria, Toronto and Saskatoon to prove his point about how often certain groups of people are in contact with police. He said he will work with the WPS to publish similar data for Winnipeg along with the costs incurred of having to respond and deal with repeat offenders. This information will be used to negotiate agreements with expert nonprofit groups to share savings they produce after the police workload has declined.
Gord Friesen, recently retired from a thirty-five year career with the WPS said that “Loney’s platform is a breath of fresh air. It will allow the WPS to spend more time apprehending actual criminals.”
Backgrounder:
When and where is Loney’s Public Safety and Homelessness Forum?
Loney’s forum will be held at the Norwood Hotel tomorrow (Wednesday) from 7 to 8:30 p.m. See shaunforwinnipeg.com/events for more details and to RSVP.
Does the Mayor of Winnipeg control police operations?
The Mayor of Winnipeg does not have direct control over Winnipeg Police Service operations. However, the Mayor and Council do have convening power to rally stakeholders around new ideas. Shaun and his work is well respected by the WPS.
Is this ‘defunding the police’?
No. Defunding leaves the police with fewer resources, longer response times and a growing workload. Police defunding also fails to recognize that the largest public financial benefits of addressing crime and homelessness are provincial.
How does your plan reduce money spent on policing?
The work of nonprofits that successfully lower emergency services workloads is an additional tool for public safety that becomes part of the WPS budget. Also, future and anticipated increases in WPS budget allocations will decline as their workload declines.
If not funding, how does the nonprofit raise revenue to pay for interventions?
The degree to which a group of people who are struggling are in constant contact with emergency services is reasonably predictable. As workload declines over what was expected, emergency services will pay nonprofits.
What about the Government of Manitoba?
The majority of financial benefits of addressing homelessness are actually the provincial Ministries of Health and Justice. As Mayor, Loney will work with the province to help it get better outcomes for less money.
Why not just send social workers to calls instead of police?
Loney supports the efforts being made as outlined in the Harvard Study to respond to some low-risk calls with non-armed officers (such as Peace Officers) or even social workers. However, when a call to 911 is activated it is an emergency and needs to be responded to by highly-trained people such as police and paramedics. The difference is that Loney’s plan reduces the number of calls in the first place and is an entirely different, but complementary approach.
How many times per year are police in contact with top repeat criminal offenders in Winnipeg?
This data isn’t available for Winnipeg. However, the following data from Saskatoon to illustrates the opportunity:
How many times per year are the top 100 people experiencing homelessness in contact with police and other emergency services?
This data isn’t available for Winnipeg. However, the following data from Toronto illustrates the opportunity:
Source: Values derived from At Home/Chez Soi (AHCS) project indexed to
Toronto site as per 2016.What is the cost to police of having to respond to people who are homeless?
This data isn’t available for Winnipeg. However, the following data from Victoria, B.C. illustrates the opportunity:
- In Victoria, 324 people with mental health challenges, drug addictions and experiencing homelessness were in contact with the Victoria Police Service a total of 23,033 times over a 40-month period.
- This required $9.2 million in staff time.
- Contact with other agencies was not tracked but would be substantive.
