Flin Flon city council is exploring the possibility of hiring specially trained peace officers to aid the RCMP in preserving law and order.
Community safety officers, or CSOs, help police enforce certain laws, such as those around public drunkenness, and work to implement crime-prevention strategies.
Eight CSOs are currently in place in Thompson through a pilot project funded by that municipality and the provincial government.
At a recent Association of Manitoba Municipalities convention in Brandon, City of Flin Flon officials discussed the program with the RCMP.
“We got some more information about that program and we’re going to actually be in contact with Thompson to see how they were actually able to get theirs off the ground,” said Coun. Leslie Beck, “and see if there’s any way that this program could benefit the citizens of Flin Flon as well.”
Beck, herself a former RCMP officer, said CSOs are trained and sworn in as peace officers but are hired to work only in a specific community.
She said duties performed by CSOs include dealing with vagrancy and panhandling, conducting patrols, assisting with mental-health-related escorts, traffic work and overseeing crime scenes.
In Thompson, CSOs also work with police to deter crime and enforce the Liquor and Gaming Control Act, the Intoxicated Persons Detention Act, the Child and Family Services Act, the Mental Health Act and the Highway Traffic Act.
Asst. Commissioner Kevin Brosseau, commanding officer of the RCMP in Manitoba, initially had doubts around placing CSOs in Thompson.
“There were 50 reasons why this could not work, but we always focused on the one reason why it could,” he said in April. “The one reason why it could happen was in fact the people of Thompson care about their community, and they want their community to be the type of place where you can walk, be safe, and enjoy it as you should.”
Thompson’s CSOs were hired in May. The Manitoba government is helping to fund their first two years of employment along with the City of Thompson.
Back in Flin Flon, violent crime increased 46 per cent, or 54 offences, from 2013 to 2014. Overall crime was up a modest eight per cent, or 74 offences.
– With files from the Thompson Citizen
