The Calgary Police Service

Our Mission: "To maximize public safety in Calgary
with vigilance, courage and pride."

CALGARY POLICE SERVICE
CRIME PREVENTION AND REDUCTION CONTINUUM
February 2011

The Calgary Police Service believes that crime reduction can only be achieved by working with community partners, to develop comprehensive strategies including education, early intervention, treatment and enforcement.

These strategies are outlined in a continuum which is shown below.

The overall goal of the continuum is to try and keep individuals out of the formal justice system whenever possible and to treat the underlying causes of their criminal behavior.

Hover your mouse over parts of the Continuum for more detail or click of the following text to see how we use our resources - the facts and figures.

Updated: Thursday, August 4, 2011 5:05 PM

Related Items

Crime Prevention and Education Component
The initial component of the continuum focuses on the following crime prevention and education phases.

Start Smart Stay Safe: Children's Project (Curriculum Design)
Start Smart Stay Safe: Family's Project (Complementary Parental Education Material)
Multi-Agency School Support Teams (MASST)
CPS Cadet Corps

Start Smart Stay Safe: Children's Project (Curriculum Design)
The CPS believes that effective education on harm reduction and the prevention of victimization of youth requires a new approach. Starting in the elementary schools and progressing through to grade 12, curriculum will be developed and linked to existing school courses like Health, Social Studies or CALM (Career and Life Management). Thriving in today's society requires youth to be educated about the risks that exist. They must be armed with the knowledge that allows them to make good decisions, develop resilience and avoid victimization.

Start Smart Stay Safe: Family's Project (Complementary Parental Education Material)
As important as it is to educate Calgary's youth, it is equally important to educate their parents. As such, Mount Royal University, the Calgary Catholic School Board and the Calgary Board of Education will be partnering with the Service to develop complementary parental education materials to supplement the curriculum design component of the continuum.

Multi-Agency School Support Teams (MASST)
To complement the educational curriculum design component, the CPS will partner with The Calgary Board of Education; The Calgary Catholic School District; and The City of Calgary Community and Neighbourhood Services to create Multi-Agency School Support Teams (MASST). These teams comprised of a police officer paired with a social worker, will facilitate the early identification and delivery of interventions to parents and their elementary and junior high school age children who are exhibiting anti-social and high risk behavior. The focus of MASST is to work with the schools and the parents on resolving problematic issues in the early stages before they escalate.

CPS Cadet Corps
The CPS Junior Cadet Corps is aimed at youth, aged 12 to 19, will focus on attracting young people, particularly from Calgary's diverse communities where exposure to the police, in their country of origin may not have been positive. This program is designed to foster communication between youth and police, based on mutual trust and respect, with the hope that this type of mentorship program will encourage these youth to consider a future career in law enforcement and will help them develop leadership skills.

Senior Cadet Corps
The Senior Cadet Corps, aimed at youth over the age of 18, will provide participants with rotational training and non-enforcement related assignments in various CPS Districts and Sections throughout the organization. The intent with this program is to increase the qualified pool of police recruit candidates, generally from the diverse communities, through mentorship and employment. This program is yet to be funded.

Child Advocacy Centre

Crime Reduction through Early Intervention Component
The CPS is piloting a number of programs for youth who have or are at risk of becoming involved in criminal activities. These programs include:

YARD
Gateway
About Face
SHOP

Treatment Component
This phase of the continuum views crime as more than just illegal acts committed by offenders. It attempts to address the underlying social, health or mental health issues that contribute to the illegal behavior.

YARD (Youth at Risk Development Program)
This award winning pilot project was developed for young people, aged 12 to 17, who are particularly at risk of initiation into street gangs, or for those currently involved in gang activity. The program takes a comprehensive approach to early identification of these individuals and provides resources to address their individual specific needs and risk factors, providing ongoing support to both the youth and their families with the end goal of extricating them from the gang.

Gateway
When youth have been charged with a criminal act for the first time, they may voluntarily choose to be diverted away from the formal justice process through the Gateway Program which uses extrajudicial measures. The Gateway team is responsible for the case management of these participants which includes an assessment of the individual's specific risk factors and application of appropriate intervention strategies to mitigate these issues.

About Face
About Face is a diversion program for youth aged 12 to 17, whose behaviour has brought them into conflict with authority figures like parents, teachers or police. The program demonstrates the effects of crime and encourages youth to accept responsibility for their actions. It provides them with tools to avoid coming into conflict with the law in the future and empowers them to make positive contributions to society. Values such as honour and respect are emphasized, and new approaches to manage their lives are provided. About Face workshops are delivered by police officers with the ultimate aim to ensure these youth will not re-offend.

SHOP
The Serious Habitual Offender Program (SHOP) exists to deal with young people who are prolific, chronic young offenders and are at a high risk of committing more crimes. This program involves intensive community supervision and reintegration strategies for serious habitual offenders designed to hold them accountable for their actions.

Police & Crisis Team (PACT)
The Police and Crisis Teams (PACT) are designed to address the street level crime and social disorder visible in the downtown area. Low-level property crime such as car prowlings, break and enters, theft, and social disorder such as aggressive panhandling, are being committed by individuals with substance abuse addictions who are trying to support their habit through crime. Quite often, a percentage of these individuals are also mentally ill and self-medicating through alcohol or drug use. As a consequence of not treating these underlying conditions, these individuals often become chronic public nuisance offenders and are regularly processed through the criminal justice system.

Closely linked to social service providers, PACT teams, consisting of a police officer and a mental health professional working together, will proactively identify individuals on the streets who are in need of assistance from community-based social support systems. This non-punitive, treatment-based approach to addressing the root causes contributing to an individual's criminal or deviant behavior has a greater likelihood of reducing the possibility that the individual will re-offend.

Enforcement Component
The final stage of the continuum focuses on using enforcement and incarceration as tools to treat young adults who have entered the justice system by committing offences to support their addictions. Many of these individuals abuse alcohol or drugs and in addition, may also suffer from undiagnosed mental illness. If the individual involved is over the age of 18, families are frequently hindered in their efforts to find support for these young adults. Consequently, many of them are sentenced to jail where the opportunity for treatment is limited.

Safe Jail
Creating a Safe Jail in Alberta, administered as a secure addictions facility, would provide an environment for individuals with mental health and addictions issues, who have been convicted of a crime, to detoxify and receive treatment. This secure environment would be rehabilitative in nature and offer detoxification (drugs such as crystal meth and crack cocaine now require a 90 to 120 day detox), treatment, employment training and education upgrades for offenders who wish to improve themselves and who meet the criteria for this option. High risk, violent or career criminals would not be housed in this facility.

It is expected that once detoxification has occurred, those suffering from mental illnesses could be identified and treatment commenced. Upon leaving this facility the individual would be transferred to a partnering social service agency in order to continue treatment.

The Alberta Safe Jail will be a collaborative effort between the police, Alberta Justice, the Alberta Solicitor General, Alberta Health and Wellness and other not-for-profit social agencies.

Integrated Justice Services Project (IJSP)
The Government of Alberta's IJSP has been created to align health, social, community and justice services with the intent of facilitating effective and coordinated service delivery, continuity of care, case management, supervision, and rehabilitation to address the root causes of a range of criminal, family and civil matters.

Under this program, two entities have been created - a Centre for Justice Innovation (CJI) and a Safe Communities Opportunity and Resource Centre (SORCe).

This project should help:

reduce the number of entries and re-entries into the criminal justice system by at risk individuals
reduce the costs, time, and involvement of system partners
increase the opportunities for alternative resolution approaches
increasing the number of individuals accessing needed services
increasing the quality of life for those in the justice system and the community

Safe Communities Opportunity and Resource Centre (SORCe)
Under the IJSP, a Safe Communities Opportunity and Resource Centre (SORCe) is being created to act as a single, accessible, location where offenders can receive treatment, supervision and support services to address the underlying cause of their criminal behavior. Housing these types of community and government services together at SORCe will provide a coordinated approach to address offender issues.