Report Shows Community Services Are Best Investment For Public Safety

Research on community safety released today shows that Peel Region can significantly improve community safety, at a far lower cost, by investing in community services, and taking a more diversified approach to funding community safety.

The study shows Peel Region, like many jurisdictions, often send police to incidents that they are not the best qualified to deal with, at a far higher cost than qualified interventions would require. Peel Regional Police respond to mental health calls though over 80% of them involve no criminal activity and no violence or danger, when qualified mental health staff could attend those calls at a fraction of the cost. Peel Police are called to deal with homelessness, when housing workers are better equipped to address these issues and don’t require the broad range of costly equipment officers carry. Peel police are called to schools when youth are in distress when calling a youth worker would provide better outcomes, and less expense.

The report calls for Peel Region to invest in expanded community services to ensure 24/7 interventions for vulnerable people as Ottawa and Toronto have done.

“We need a system that sends the right person to the right place at the right time”, said Angela Carter of the Anti-Black Racism Systemic and Discrimination (ABR-SD) Collective. “But we haven’t made a systematic effort to plan for that. Good programs are up and running here and there, but we need a coherent plan for providing the right kind of crisis support to people who are in vulnerable situations.”

ABR-SD members noted that Toronto already has over 100 staff delivering civilian crisis services for mental health, and the program has stable municipal funding to operate uninterrupted, 24/7. Peel has created a smaller program based on a similar model, but relied on inconsistent provincial funding to run it, which meant interruptions in the program until recently.

The Research was commissioned by Peel’s Anti-Black Racism Systemic and Discrimination network and conducted by research firm Blueprint ADE. 

For more information: 

Contact Chelsea Antwi at 905-455-6789, ext. 112

Visit www.abrsdpeel.ca or email connect@abrsdpeel.ca