It just isn't the image any community wants - achieving top billing on the Statistics Canada Crime Severity Index for the second year running.
City of North Battleford councillor Ron Crush did his best to put a positive spin on the situation last week, pointing out hard work by law enforcement has actually produced a drop in crime numbers for 2010 from 2009. While those gains are appreciated, they aren't enough to erase negative exposure in the provincial and national media.
And positive spin doesn't really alter the reality. Crime is a problem in the Battlefords and according to the results of an online newsoptimist.ca survey, citizens would like to see a multipronged approach to solving the issues behind the statistics.
At the root of the strategy should be an aggressive "take back the streets" stance, especially in light of two recently publicized incidents in which individuals were threatened and assaulted within the confines of their own private property. Such abuse cannot be tolerated, even in a community deemed to be statistically rife with crime.
Battlefords residents are fed up with being victimized and a recent addition to a service station on Railway Avenue paints a grim picture. The establishment's windows are now covered with heavy metal grates and a sliding apparatus made of the same material can be pulled together and locked with a heavy hasp at closing time. Obviously one too many break ins has the owners of that small business battening down the hatches.
It's a complicated problem, with complicated solutions.
Richard Wouters recently sent a letter to the editor through our website with the following suggestions: "Cell phones, stop checks, seat belts - what a bunch of crap. Put a stop to the real problem everyone knows what that is. Crime! Put the police out at night and early morning hours and stop the crap. The city might get people moving in not out."
About 14 per cent of respondents to our poll agreed with Wouters, choosing the response "focus on serious crime rather than traffic offenses" to our question about what should be done about the community's crime situation.
Wouters, who has been frequently victimized since returning to the Battlefords, has every right to be bitter. While his solution is a simplistic one, it is certainly a starting point.
Twenty-eight per cent, believe hiring more police officers is the most effective solution, while 38.6 per cent are looking for an effective plan to deal with the underlying causes of the crime situation.
An effective plan will take co-operation, creativity and perseverance, but the effort would be worth not making negative headlines again in 2011.
