St. Paul RCMP has a difficult job. It becomes all the more difficult when the presiding laws of the land see fit to allow people to commit the same offences over and over again. The impact on local police is huge. Twenty-five per cent of calls are to deal with around 100 public intoxication complaints per month. That’s people walking the streets with open liquor, possibly drunk and passed out in public places, harassing law abiding citizens and perhaps committing other more serious offences.
Police are frequently called to deal with vagrants, and as it turns out, most of the time it is from the same bunch of people, a group of around 10 to 20 who roam lawlessly through town, leaving empty 40 oz. bottles of beer in their wake.
The provincial justice system considers a fine in addition to spending the night in the drunk tank as punishing the same incident twice, thus is reluctant to fine offenders. So the same people committing the same offences wake up, stumble out of the steps of jail and do the same thing again. There is no deterrence, frankly no reason to break the bad habit.
Even where a fine is given, most can’t pay, and where a warrant is issued, time served counts for time in lieu and the perpetrator walks free without paying any debt to society. The circle of vagrancy continues, with the taxpayer coughing up the cash to pay for it all.
Between the RCMP and justice system, the costs of dealing with these persistent offenders is enormous. Instead of dealing with the problem, the provincial justice system seems to encourage it.
The provincial mindset is boggling. While permitting the same people to commit the same offences over and over, the police are basically on babysitting duty and providing a place to sleep for public drunks. While RCMP officers join the force with noble intentions, the justic system is not using recruits to their full potential.
The local RCMP detachment staff sergeant made a great recommendation to Town council at its annual report to council: pass a panhandling bylaw. A municipal bylaw would give the Town the authority to prosecute offenders and perhaps put a dent in the persistent problem.
Someone, whether the Town, the Province, or the Feds, needs to step up and fix a broken system, because the way it is dealt with now is not working.
