Time to shift perspective on policing Winnipeg

Municipal elections are mere weeks away in Winnipeg and in cities from coast to coast to coast. As ever, policing and its challenges get prime placement among the various spillers of ink. And so, perhaps, it should. Security of person and property is an immediate, sometimes existential concern for citizens. It always has been; probably always will be. And when citizens think security, they usually think police.

We believe it is time to shift our perspective.

Canadian writer and broadcaster H. Gordon Green once observed that “nothing brings back the good old days half so well as a poor memory.” So, let’s for the moment set aside the romance of beat cops in buffalo coats comforting kiddies and soothing seniors. Maybe that’s going too far back.

There was a time when officers walked the beat on Main Street encountering nothing but minor disturbances caused by some poor souls stumbling out of one of the local establishments. The key phrase here is “stumbling out,” not lying passed out on the sidewalk, meandering into traffic or, worse still, engaged in open drug use. Officers could safely lodge such people at the Main Street Project, located on Martha Street, not on the city’s major thoroughfare. It was a simpler time and officers often walked that beat all night without a single incident of note.

Columnists, pundits, and politicians are enthralled by statistics. They are useful tools, but we recall Mark Twain’s cautionary perspective, “There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.” Statistics, honestly taken and reported, have much to tell us. For much of Devon Clunis’s career, from 1987 to 2016, Winnipeg was the perennial champion — claiming the distinctive titles of “murder capital” and “crime capital” of Canada.

In those days, there were regular political announcements about “boots on the streets,” with corresponding rises in police budgets. It never really seemed to affect crime much. Winnipeg remained the champ, holding fast to its dubious titles. Devon has always believed there had to be another way.

Cities evolve. So does policing and when Devon was sworn in as chief of police in 2012, he was determined to accelerate that evolution in Winnipeg.

Modern policing is a relatively new development of human society. The Metropolitan Police Force in London, widely considered the first modern urban police organization, was formally established in 1859. Its predecessor was inaugurated under Sir Robert Peel, then British Home Secretary, in 1829, a mere 197 years ago.

We should not be afraid to take bold steps to evolve what is still a fledgling experiment in public safety; so in 2012, Devon, as chief, led a departure from the status quo and embarked on an evolutionary track of crime prevention through social development. Many thought him a dodo. Surely we would all go extinct if then-Premier Greg Selinger accepted Devon’s advice to freeze police budgets. The advice was to invest the funds in social services that prevent the conditions which lead youth and young adults to get caught up in crime. Devon remembers the looks. Many were not charmed.

But he believed what he believed and he stuck to his guns. Back to the stats.

In 2013, Winnipeg saw a 14 per cent decrease in overall crime. Violent crime fell by 13 per cent and property crime fell by 17 per cent. No additional officers were added to the complement. What was the change? Intense community engagement, where everyone was given an opportunity to be part of the solution to Winnipeg’s crime problem.

What we have witnessed over the past decade is a debilitating reliance on police as the sole agents of crime prevention. It is foolish and downright dangerous when voteseekers and vocal critics call for police to take charge of crime prevention. They cannot do it alone. Nor should they.

We maintain that a safe society, a secure society, depends on the ‘polis’ (Greek for city or city-state) as a whole. Certainly, police play an indispensable role. But educators, religious leaders, business leaders, shopkeepers, athletes, artists and you play a pivotal role in crime prevention.

To act on this belief, we have launched the Compassionate Winnipeg movement, an initiative aimed at reconnecting citizens and communities and creating a shared awareness of our need for one another. A mutual responsibility for crime prevention is central to this movement.

Preventing crime requires positive values and action. City council and the mayor, civic bureaucrats, front-line responders of all vocations, health workers, law enforcement officers, first responders, courts, social workers and a host of civic networks and professionals in every field of human endeavour, are required to build and maintain a safe and healthy city.

If you want crime prevention, look in the mirror. And on Oct. 28, take your ballot and vote. When you do, you will have a stake in crime prevention and every other value and related task required to build a strong city, a safe city and a compassionate city.

Devon Clunis, former chief of the Winnipeg Police Service and inspector general of policing for Ontario, is leader of the Compassionate Winnipeg Initiative and founder of the Clunis Institute for Leadership.

James Taylor Christie is professor emeritus of theology at the University of Winnipeg and a fellow of the Clunis Institute.