A new province-wide program aims to tackle chronic property crime and public disorder.
Deputy Premier and Attorney General of British Columbia Niki Sharma made the announcement during a visit to Smithers this morning (June 23).
She said the new initiative is a response to a lot of municipalities and small businesses that have been saying that chronic property offenders are a problem.
Dubbed the Chronic Property Offending Intervention Initiative (CPOII), Sharma said the program aims to target chronic property offenders who are doing the most damage to communities and small businesses by exerting increased criminal justice pressure, and by providing resources offenders may need to change their lives.
The provincial government is investing $16 million over two years to launch the program in 12 provincial hubs. It is modelled after the current Repeat Violent Offending Intervention Initiative that has 12 hubs across the province already.
The CPOII hubs will be in Terrace, Castlegar/Nelson, Chilliwack, Courtenay, Dawson Creek, Kelowna, Langley, Maple Ridge, Penticton, Surrey, Vancouver and Victoria.
The hubs will expand supervision of repeat offending to more communities, with the purpose of reducing street disorder and crimes targeting local businesses.
Each hub is led by a dedicated co-ordinator and will support more effective management of high risk individuals.
“You just have people circled around these individuals with the hub that can either lead to quicker responses if the person is causing issues or directed supports to help them with the mental health needs or whatever that they are struggling with to get them on a different path,” Sharma explained.
“So, it’s proved itself out in the Repeat Violent Offender Initiative that was launched a few years ago that we were able to lessen police calls.”
Sharma was in Smithers for the five-year anniversary of the virtual bail pilot project that began in the North. Virtual bail hearings are now used throughout the province, helping courts operate more efficiently.
“The idea of virtual hearings is you can actually unlock the potential of the court without having to travel, and I know up north, people down south don’t really appreciate the distances between courthouses and how complicated that be, especially in the winter,” Sharma said.
“Virtual bail has been a really good addition up north, it [has been] so successful in terms of how it made trials go faster, helped judges not have to travel or court processes have to travel, we spread to the rest of the province.”
She added this is just the start to modernizing the court system in B.C.
Meanwhile, Sharma said they are still looking into finding creative solutions to solve the problem of the lack of spaces to house in-custody accused individuals during trials in certain communities.
The Supreme Court of B.C. said earlier this spring scheduled criminal trials for in-custody accused persons may not be able to proceed in some court locations.
The court issued the notice on April 30, warning of the possible impacts to some criminal trials at 11 court locations: Cranbrook, Dawson Creek, Fort St. John, Nelson, Powell River, Prince Rupert, Revelstoke, Rossland, Smithers, Terrace and Williams Lake.
The notice says that it may not be possible for criminal trials to proceed as scheduled if the accused person is in custody and the courthouse is distant from the nearest pre-trial correctional centre. It also applies to voir dires, pre-trial applications and sentencing proceedings.
“So it’s an active work in progress, and we want to make sure that those trials happen on time and there aren’t any more delays, which is something that you know is our job to make sure happens.”