Community meeting held to discuss crime in Varsity View and Pleasant Hill

Crime was the hot topic at the community consultation meeting held at the Saskatoon Farmers’ Market on Wednesday.

The meeting was hosted by the Saskatoon Board of Police Commissioners and featured presentations by spokespeople for the Varsity View and Pleasant Hill neighbourhoods, a presentation by police chief Troy Cooper on their strategic plan and table discussions for participants to talk about what could be done.

Both Cooper and safety coordinator for the Pleasant Hill Community Association, Shane Partridge spoke about the need for better collaboration between the city, the police and each neighbourhood.

“We just need to start doing a better job  of working together. We need to be transparent, they need to be held to a level of accountability the same as we are and we have to get rid of this us and them narrative. It’s just us, that’s the only way we are ever going to be able to move forward,” Partridge said.

“You know it’s not normal for our kids to be eight-years-old and be able to recognize what a meth induced psychosis is. They shouldn’t now those words let alone be able to point out who is involved in that right now.”

Partridge points to a constant cycle of inter-generational trauma, addictions, mental health issues and inadequate funding as the fundamental problems that have led to Pleasant Hill having crime rates comparable to some of the most dangerous places in the world.

“You have a one-in-700 chance of being murdered in Pleasant Hill,” he said.

“It’s one-in-3,500 in places like El Salvador and these other countries that have big warnings on the government website to not go to.  So how are we supposed to find one-in-750 acceptable? That doesn’t make any sense.”

Partridge said he hasn’t seen enough action by the police to date but also says it is not all their fault due to not having enough resources to properly address the problems in the neighbourhood.

Cooper spoke about the current strategy for dealing with crime spikes in the neighbourhood and how over-policing isn’t always the answer.

“We do base our resources on science. So we look at the call volumes and victimization rates and that’s how we determine how much police resources a community gets. When they had spikes in violence we added additional resources there,” he said.

“But I think we need to have a longer term plan for Pleasant Hill because additional police are not always the answer. Particularly in an area like that, that at times can be over-policed, we can start having a negative affect.”

Saskatoon’s safe injection site is set to open sometime next year, in the Pleasant Hill neighbourhood. Cooper said they desperately need more resources before it does so they can properly utilize their public safety response that includes more officers in the area.