Police board seeks more action on ‘complex needs’ service gap

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Saskatoon’s board of police commissioners plans to send a new letter to the provincial government about the findings in the city police report that describes a lack of supports for people with “complex needs” enabling a cycle of rearrest and detention.

The board on Thursday approved a slew of motions after a lengthy discussion about the report on police interactions with people who have “complex needs” — those who experience homelessness, mental health and/or addictions issues and are often hard to house.

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The report found that police, when they detain people with “complex needs” for public intoxication, often don’t have anywhere besides their own detention unit to take people who are in a vulnerable state and unable to care for themselves if the Saskatchewan Health Authority-operated brief detox unit is full.

It also found that when people are released, detention staff try to find them space at a shelter if available; otherwise they end up out on their own.

“This is unacceptable for the City of Saskatoon,” board chair Jyotsna (Jo) Custead said.

Police board member Coun. Hilary Gough made several motions, including offering to work with the province as it develops policies for the new “complex needs” facility to be opened in Saskatoon, and continuing to lobby for supportive social housing.

“Our community as a whole deserves better continuity here. It’s, to be quite frank, unacceptable,” she said.

In their assessment, police saw a gap in post-release services, Chief Troy Cooper told the StarPhoenix.

“It’s necessary to keep people in care, whether that’s in a hospital or a jail cell or a complex needs facility. There’s a need to keep them for a period of time.”

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Cooper said police want to find out if there’s a best practice used in other jurisdictions or a community partnership they can develop, where an agency would come in at the time of release to plan and provide supports so people aren’t returning to the same conditions that led their detention.

Police found about a third of all arrests within Jan. 1, 2022 and Aug. 31, 2023 were only for public intoxication, and 52 per cent of those people were homeless. A majority of people arrested for intoxication were Indigenous men between 20 and 39 years of age.

Board commissioner Shirley Greyeyes said the demographics are important. Indigenous people represent about nine per cent of Saskatoon’s overall population, she noted.

“And then you look at these numbers. That should slap everybody in the face … the reality of what is happening to those people who have suffered for so long.”

Cooper told the StarPhoenix the province is interested in learning from police experiences as it explores how to safely transition people from a complex needs facility into the community.

“We certainly are interested in finding new partners if possible, or supporting partners that exist now that need more funding or more resources,” he said, giving the example of lobbying for funding for the Saskatoon Tribal Council-run Sawēyihotān program addressing homelessness.

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He said people look to police to find a solution to what they see in the community.

“I think what the report today really clearly showed is that traditional policing methods of writing tickets and bringing people into custody temporarily is ineffective, that there’s a core group of people who just are not impacted by those traditional methods,” he said.

“We need to, if we’re going to find a solution, it’s going to have to include more than just justice, more than just policing.”

tjames@postmedia.com

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