The number is so startling, so glaringly obvious that it would seem inconceivable for the powers that be not to take action.
Delta police Chief Jim Cessford has done some tremendous research with regards to chronic offenders, many of whom suffer from mental health and addiction issues. The number that jumped off the page when it came to Cessford's report is the fact that about 45 per cent of all calls Delta police officers respond to involve a person with some kind of mental health issue.
That's an absolutely staggering figure, one that demands our catch-and-release justice system to sit up and take notice. When almost half the calls involve people with mental health or addiction issues, it begs the question: Are they committing crimes because they're career criminals that can't be rehabilitated or simply because they're not receiving adequate treatment for their conditions? I suspect it's the latter in the vast majority of cases, yet for some reason we continue to engage them at the wrong end of the system. It's an enormous waste of police resources to deal with matters that, while criminal in nature, are only happening because of underlying conditions.
We're turning beat cops into addiction counsellors and therapists, tasked with trying to help people that desperately require assistance from our health system, not its justice counterpart. That's not to suggest those who commit crimes shouldn't be held responsible for their actions, but this perpetual cycle of catching and releasing offenders, only to have them re-offend with alarming frequency, clearly isn't working.
This reactionary approach puts resources in the wrong places and asks the wrong people to deal with the problem.
Thankfully it appears Cessford's report is making some inroads with both policing and local government organizations. Delta officials met with Attorney General Suzanne Anton late last month to further the cause, hopeful that resources will be re-allocated to programs that deal with root causes.
It stands to reason that if many of these chronic offenders received the necessary treatment, they would cease to be chronic offenders. That wouldn't be the case for everyone, obviously, but intervening where it would actually do some good, rather than after the fact, would undoubtedly whittle those numbers down substantially.
Let's hope the powers that be come to that conclusion.
