A sheriff pilot partnership program commenced late February in Alberta’s major metropolitan centres. Through a provincial public safety initiative, Edmonton Police Service (EPS) and Calgary Police Services (CPS) are partnering with Alberta sheriffs, also known as bylaw or peace officers, to increase officer presence in their respective downtown centres.
“The Edmonton and Calgary community safety pilot projects are both part of the Alberta government’s broader paradigm shifts to make police an extension of the community, as opposed to a strong arm of the state,” said the Alberta Sheriffs Branch’ statement. “These pilot projects allow officers to have more opportunities to engage with the public, hear community concerns and help people in crisis by connecting them to the community services they need.”
According to Government of Alberta press releases, 12 sheriffs will be deployed to Edmonton and Calgary’s inner cities to address growing crime and social disorder. Edmonton’s pilot program will run for 15 weeks, and Calgary will run the program for 12 weeks.
But Adam Massiah, founder of the United Black People’s Allyship and an anti-black racism activist based in Calgary, Alta., is skeptical on how additional sheriffs will solve the growing social disorder in Alberta’s major inner cities.
“Something needs to be done about the existing social disorder that we’re seeing inside of our municipalities, but this is not a long-term solution to the problem that we’ve witnessed and the problems that we’re seeing,” said Massiah in an interview with rabble. “We already have an X amount of officers that are spread across the network of Calgary, and I have no idea what adding 12 more people to that is going to do other than have a tiny drop in the bucket effect, if anything at all.”
Law enforcement relations with vulnerable and racialized communities
According to a Statistics Canada study from 2022, Black and Indigenous persons were most likely to experience discrimination when interacting with police or law enforcement. Although, Black people encountered police just as much as non-visible minority people, they were four times more likely to experience racial discrimination in their encounters. For Indigenous people, discrimination during police interactions were five times more likely to occur.
“There was obviously an issue between [law enforcement] and the community in regard to how they were interacting with minority citizens—and there’s already been a serious lack of accountability when it comes down to them dealing with police brutality or dealing with use of force,” said Massiah.
Chaz Smith, CEO of Be the Change YYC, has worked with vulnerable populations for the past eight years. The Calgary-based non-profit organization’s mission is to end the cycle of homelessness by working on a street level to provide food, water, clothing, hygienic products and harm reduction supplies, while also connecting homeless populations with resources or referrals.
“I think the concern when we talk about increased police presence and or bylaw along with a vulnerable population, historically we have seen the marginalization of folks that are visible minorities experiencing homelessness,” said Smith.
Smith has noticed efforts from law enforcement towards bettering relations with vulnerable populations. Be the Change YYC’s homeless street outreach team partner with peace officers who are trained to work with vulnerable persons in a non-confrontational way and help them get access to services instead.
“[They are] recognizing that as they’re going about as peace officers, that obviously they’re coming across vulnerable populations—so instead of marginalizing them further, it’s how can we support them in an equitable way,” said Smith. “I have seen firsthand how Calgary police and bylaw officers have been working towards a more equitable solution than what we historically have seen—and I would like to see that that work is continued. I don’t think I have any indicator that it wouldn’t be.”
Complex solutions needed for growing social disorder
While the aim of the sheriff pilot program is to assist police in creating an environment where citizens feel safer in their downtown centres, the solution to addressing the growing social disorder is much more complex.
“In regards to them trying to fix the problem of social disorder with adding 12 people to the network—it’s not going to work. There needs to be larger conversations between the federal government, the provincial government, to talk about potentially looking at what the root causes of this are,” said Massiah.
Mental health is one of those root causes and addressing it is key to solving these issues added Massiah.
“You actually need to have wraparound resources for individuals as opposed to just throwing them into a ward at the hospital for five days and then kicking them back out onto the streets,” said Massiah.
Smith reiterated this point as wraparound services are essential to vulnerable populations, especially those diagnosed with addiction or mental health issues. He also pointed out that secure housing can remediate some of the social disorder in Alberta’s inner cities especially when people are struggling with inflation.
“We already have a housing crisis—we don’t have enough housing for folks experiencing homelessness. We check clients in [for housing] once every two weeks. Many of our clients will wait many, many months. Many will wait years,” said Smith.
Access to affordable housing is key to keeping vulnerable persons safe. The Housing First approach has proven to be successful in pulling people out of homelessness. Yet Canada has the lowest housing stock out of the G7 countries—Alberta ranks one of the lowest in Canada for homes per capita. Furthermore, a study from the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy found that the public cost of homelessness is on average $87,000 a year. Once individuals had permanent housing that cost dropped to $30,500 a year.
“It’s just very sad to know that we as a culture have decided that we’d rather pay more in taxes to maintain a person in homelessness than to actually advocate for housing. Housing has become this commodity where we’re buying and selling, and it’s not looked at as a basic human need which in Canada, we have passed laws stating that it is a human need and it’s a human right,” said Smith. “I just hope that folks see this and that they’re able to continue advocating for that because that, in many ways, is a solution to so many of these systemic problems that we see playing up on the streets.”
When it comes to relations between racialized communities and law enforcement, there’s some progress. While Calgary launched an Anti-Racism Action Committee back in 2020, a committee that Massiah himself has been involved with since the beginning until mid-2022, there’s still a long way to go.
Even minor solutions such as collecting more race-based data in terms of police interactions or creating a more accessible police complaint application for people with English as a second language. Most importantly, implementing lasting policy changes Massiah said.
“A lot of promises that have been made … But at the end of the day, I’m still waiting to see one tangible piece of policy change that makes me as a Black man feel any safer than I did in 2020 when I get pulled over by an officer,” Massiah said. “It’s still a very big persisting issue, and we need to apply pressure to ensure that changes are implemented—policy change is what’s necessary to begin to rebuild the relationships between the community and police forces across Canada and across North America.”
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