Issues involving mental health and addiction continue to be one of the leading issues for police in Windsor, something the Chief of Police believes requires a more robust response moving forward.
Jason Bellaire presented the 2022 Annual Report for Windsor Police at Monday's city council meeting, and took questions on how council can assist the force to better respond to their challenges.
Some notable statistics in the report show an increase in overall calls received, with 410,707, a seven per cent increase over 2021.
Crimes against persons were up 9.78 per cent compared to 2021, crimes against property up 5.18 per cent and youth-related crimes were up by 11.89 per cent over 2021 numbers.
But the main driver of the calls for service were related to mental health and addictions, something Bellaire says is an issue because police are not the subject matter experts.
He says they are making some progress however, like the new initiative Police-Nurse teams that launched earlier this month.
"We looked through our data, we used the hospital data, we found the busiest hours for the emergency department and we put the resources out on the street. We brought the emergency department out to the people who need it for wound care or substance use issues because that's what the information told us we should do," he stated.
Bellaire says it's critical to continue engaging community partners to find proactive solutions to those problems to benefit the people dealing with them and the overall community.
With a growing population, Bellaire explained to council that it's not surprising to see some of the crime statistics go up.
To address that, they've had to look inside their organization to reinvest people into strategies they believe will move the needle and reduce recidivist crimes.
"Enhance social order, and try to connect people to the much needed services. That, we think, if connected to services in a timely way will reduce the overall calls for service and the strain on scarce police resources."
Some other improvements Bellaire highlighted include embedding an officer in the emergency officer at Windsor Regional Hospital 24/hours a day, seven days a week, the Mobile Crisis Rapid Response Team, and the Community Outreach and Support team.
Bellaire says another positive for the service is their Auxiliary Police Service, something that was highlighted at a recent Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police meeting.
He says they received praise for the service, and they're actually having trouble keeping members of the Auxiliary force because they keep hiring them internally.
"They do very well, it's one of our biggest recruitment grounds that we have for Windsor Police. Sometimes we can't get to them fast enough and they get hired by other police services, but we have coming home program where we try to get them later. To see if they want to come home to be police officers in their home municipality," he said.
Another area of focus for local police is road safety, with Bellaire telling council they will continue to monitor dangerous intersections and try to crack down on stunt drivers.