Prince Albert's Crime/Risk Reduction Approach to Community Safety

Abstract

Faced with escalating crime rates and increasing demands for services the Prince Albert Police Service led a mobilization effort to implement a crime/risk reduction strategy called Community Mobilization Prince Albert (CMPA). The study examines the evolution of crime prevention practices from police-based efforts that relied on focused enforcement practices to the current risk reduction model. This research examines the outcomes of crime prevention efforts and their results on reducing crime and social disorder after the implementation of the CMPA in 2011. In terms of methodology, two strategies were used. First, a pre-and post-implementation strategy was used to examine whether changes in levels of crime as well as calls for service declined during the period of the study. The analyses revealed that the CMPA resulted in reduced rates of violent, property and other crimes during the four years after implementation of CMPA along with a reduction in calls for service for acts against the public order such as loud parties. Second, an examination of whether the costs of crime to society decreased after the implementation of the CMPA was carried out. Those analyses indicated that overall savings to society were realized after the implementation of the CMPA, although that finding was sensitive to the era being studied. Given those findings, a number of implications for policy, practice, and future research are presented. Keywords: Community Mobilization, Proactive Policing, Costs of Crime, Police Calls for Service.