As the 2014 fiscal year wraps up, Burnaby RCMP is looking ahead to address five priorities it considers critical issues in the city.
The issues identified as most critical include property crime, youth, road safety, violent crimes and drug activity. The five priorities are the result of roundtable meetings between community stakeholders and the Burnaby RCMP.
One priority that is, in a way, being moved to the back burner is on mental health.
While not directly included on the list, it's still connected in many ways to both violent crimes and drug activity, said Burnaby RCMP Staff Sgt. Maj. John Buis.
Last year, one of the Burnaby RCMP's goals was to reduce the number of calls for service by people with chronic mental health problems by 10 per cent. The department surpassed their target and reduced these types of calls by 76 per cent.
According to Buis, 10 people were identified as the city’s most chronic callers with an average of 24 calls per month between April 2013 and March 2014. In 2014, the number of average calls dropped to only five each month – a good indicator the department is doing something right, Buis added.
"If we're able to reduce the number of calls for service from that individual and get them help - that's the key," he said.
Partnerships with Fraser Health, the city's taskforce on homelessness and Progressive Housing, along with a dedicated mental health officer provide responding officers with access to mental health and social workers who are trained to assist people.
Now that the fiscal year is over, the RCMP will establish a number of goals related to each of the identified priorities and put them into action, Buis said.
"We set goals and some of them were (related to) distracted driving, and we were very close last quarter to attaining those goals, same with removing and arresting impaired drivers," he said.
Last year's final quarter ended on March 31. It'll take about two weeks for Buis to go through the data and see if all the targets, laid out at the beginning of last year, were reached. Depending on how many goals were attained in 2014, the RCMP will create a new set of targets for the 2015 year in relation to its top five priorities.
