Safety starts with getting to know your neighbours

It seems everyone knows someone who has had things stolen from their yard or watched shady characters scoping out garages in Ritchie this year. Crime is such a hot topic, Councillor Mike Nickel organized two town hall meetings with Edmonton Police Chief Dale McFree in September, including one in Hazeldean.


By national standards, Edmonton has experienced yearly increases in the number and severity of crimes since 2012. In Ritchie, compared to last year, we’re holding steady with about 155 crimes on the EPS Crime Map by the start of October. But that’s up 20 per cent over the 128 crimes reported by October 2017.


What kind of crimes?

Southeast Division Superintendent Dean Hilton, in speaking at the Hazeldean town hall Sept. 30, said 80 per cent are property crimes; only 20 per cent are violent. Chief McFee added that 92.7 per cent of all calls are ranked fourth and fifth priority (out of five), adding that property crimes are driven largely by people looking for easy cash to buy drugs, the cheapest on the street currently being methamphetamine (speed).

These stats are simultaneously unsettling (because crime is increasing) and reassuring (because relatively few are high priority or violent, which by their nature tend not to affect the general public since violence is more likely to occur between individuals known to each other).

When strangers intrude on our personal space and mess with our belongings, however, it’s bound to make us uneasy, which can give way all too easily to a sense that danger lurks around every corner. But there’s another way to see it, says Kane Dozorec, soccer director for Ritchie Community League.

“These problems are caused by some of the most vulnerable people in our neighbourhood, by people who see no other choice,” says Dozorec. He adds that while their criminal actions must be stopped, their crimes against your property aren’t reason to fear them causing you personal harm.

Inspector Graham Hogg of Southeast Division made a similar observation at the town hall meeting: “We’re really good at putting people in jail...but we’re not doing a good job of dealing with the root of the issue of why these guys keep doing what they’re doing.”


So how to stop them?


Report, report, report. That was the message from police and Councillor Nickel at the town halls. Crimes in progress. Problem properties. Suspicious behaviours. Crimes after the fact, (even if you think the likelihood of getting your stuff back is low). Each report is a data point the police use in daily strategy sessions to deploy the 180 officers assigned to the area that includes Ritchie.

Councillor Nickel’s office is developing a new way to sift through and report non-emergency crime data so police can better identify patterns in the deluge of calls they get. The hope is to develop neighbourhood contacts to whom community policing liaisons can report back on action the service takes to address local problems.

For his part, Chief McFee plans to work with other agencies to address the social issues that criminalize so many people and appeal to the city’s brightest minds in tech and artificial intelligence to help find the predictors of crime and measure the results of new coordinated efforts. “The bulk of calls driving our work are social issues and police can’t solve social issues on their own.”


Indeed, everyone has a part to play.


When garbage, including needles, began accumulating near Ritchie’s playground this summer, all the right people noticed! In short order, league board members cleaned up the site before neighbours stopped sending their kids out to play. (They left the needles for the city’s 3-1-1 service to deal with.) Like leaving grafitti in place, letting the debris linger would have sent a message that residents don’t care.

Caring is key. Neighbours who know one another look out for one another. And when you know your neighbours, you also know who and what belongs in the area.

That’s the foundation of Edmonton’s Neighbourhood Watch. Its research has shown that crime is significantly reduced where residents are visibly present and are actively involved on their streets. Once upon a time, it scheduled citizen patrols. But that was found less effective than individuals out for random walks. So now it promotes the Walk Your Block Program which asks you to register and log your walks so statistics can be gathered on how effective community involvement is in reducing crime.

One thing that hasn’t changed is ENW’s philosophy: It is better to be a good witness than an injured victim. Don’t intervene in what’s happening, just report it. Chief McFee concurs, “Don’t put yourself in harm’s way.”

But as important as it is to report when things are going amiss in the neighbourhood, it equally important to direct those reports to the agency best able to respond.

That’s not always the police.


When all calls go to the police to sift through, wait times for service increase, the investigative role of police can’t focus on identifying trends nor can they target the worst offenders. “It all becomes white noise,” says Chief McFee. So far this year, EPS has fielded 20,000 calls.

Doing our part to beat back the anxiety we feel about property crime in Ritchie, which will bolster feelings of personal safety and help the police get ahead of crime trends, means we need to get to know our neighbours and get to know the various agencies that can respond to the problems we see.

Who to call and when

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