The man behind Point Douglas crime busters is offering to turn his group's focus on busting truants.
Sel Burrows said residents on inner-city committees will help schools keep kids in class and away from petty crime.
Sel Burrows: Truancy a problem.
Burrows is the point man for the Point Douglas Residents Committee that shut down dozens of crack houses.
Residents accomplished the feat by monitoring homes with surveillance cameras and reporting activity through an e-mail network.
Police used the intel to make drug busts.
Monday evening, Burrows was with a delegation scheduled to speak at a regular meeting of the Winnipeg School Division.
The message is, the school board must crack down on truants.
"The same people who told us where the crack houses were are telling us truancy is a problem," Burrows said.
Kids can't commit crime if they're in school, Burrows said.
"We have one message to take to the school division," Burrows said. "Truancy is a problem and we want them to take a lead on it. The Point Douglas Residents Committee and other inner-city committees will help them find these kids," Burrows said.
Enforcement is a problem.
The school division has two truant officers. In 2007, 4,426 kids were reported as truants and 2,334 were suspended from school, Burrows said, citing the division's truancy figures.
In other cities, neighbourhood committees beat back truancy with some far-reaching strategies that could work in Winnipeg.
Burrows said those neighbourhoods deputized residents as truancy officers who rousted kids out of bed to get them to school and set up patrols to make sure they stayed there.
Burrows said Point Douglas residents believe such assertive approaches work best. Perhaps school trustees just need a push to get them cracking on the problem.
"What happens is, people get into a rut and if nobody complains they keep doing the same thing. We had that (response) when we first started complaining about boarded-up buildings. And we're getting a bit of that at the Winnipeg School Division," Burrows said.
alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca
PREVIOUS
