The Town of Athabasca and Athabasca County are both part of a pilot program aiming to get at the root of rural crime in the province of Alberta.
Dubbed Building Capacity in Rural Crime Prevention, the project also includes the communities of Calling Lake, as well as Lac La Biche County, the Town of Peace River, the City of Wetaskiwin, the Town of Beiseker, as well as Sunchild First Nation.
“I will be attending a meeting in Red Deer about this project Nov. 28 and 29,” Athabasca Citizens on Patrol president Rod Kerr said. “This initiative is going to cover a wide range of issues, and it will include training sessions on how to deal with each issue. I’m looking forward to being a part of this new project.”
Town of Athabasca Mayor Colleen Powell said at least one council member will be in attendance, as well as bylaw enforcement officer Brian Bandura.
“We will get a tool kit after the session which will hopefully give us some new ideas on how to combat the growing issue of rural crime,” Powell added. “It’s the first good news we have had, as there are very few tools in a municipal tool chest to deal with this, either from the police point of view or from the municipal perspective.”
She said the town continues to struggle to address the social issues that might be fuelling some of the crime.
“Our police officers are limited, as we only have nine RCMP officers at the Athabasca detachment assigned to an area about the same size as Luxembourg,” Powell continued. “It’s no accident that when the economy goes up, the crime goes down. But here, we lack social services, we have only one psychologist, and our addictions services counselors are overworked and underpaid. We don’t have authority in many areas to allow us to do what we need to do.”
According to an article from the Edmonton Journal, Alberta Community Crime Prevention Association chairperson Jean Bota addressed the Rural Municipalities of Alberta convention Nov. 14 that the project’s objectives are to have a comprehensive understanding of rural crime and the problems surrounding it.
Bota added it will be cross-sectoral work between agencies and the communities where the pilots are implemented in order to understand what is behind the crime in those areas.
Athabasca County Reeve Larry Armfelt said they will be looking at both short-term and long-term goals.
“The short-term goals are to reduce rural crime across the province and within our own community by any means possible,” Armfelt said. “The long-term goals will be a new model for the justice system that will benefit everybody. With some of the same criminals going in and out of the court system, I would say the current model is not necessarily effective.”
Kerr added once they have the conference in Red Deer, they will be able to add more comments as to what the program itself will be about.
The pilot project is set to launch in March and end in 2021 and will be funded by the Alberta Ministry of Justice.
