The Ontario government has announced $2.2-million in funding to help the Windsor Police Service and LaSalle Police Service prevent repeat and violent offenders from committing serious crimes while out on bail.
The funding is from the government's Bail Compliance and Warrant Apprehension Grant program which providing $24 million across the province to help establish dedicated bail compliance and/or warrant apprehension teams to monitor high-risk individuals.
The local grant funding will be used to establish a joint bail compliance team comprised of officers from both the Windsor Police Service and the LaSalle Police Service as well as a civilian crime analyst.
The new team will work to monitor and apprehend high-risk, repeat offenders who violate bail or community supervision conditions or have outstanding arrest warrants.
The support will also enable each service to purchase technology to improve tracking and monitoring of high-risk individuals out on bail and share offender information with police services across the province.
The Windsor and LaSalle Police Services will receive $769,460 this year, $752,160 in 2025, and $754,817 in 2026.
Essex Conservative MPP Anthony Leardi told AM800's The Shift that we know, and especially the police know, who the repeat offenders are and who they are most likely to victimize.
"We're empowering our police in Windsor, LaSalle and Amherstburg to go after the people who are going to violate their bail conditions and jeopardize the safety of vulnerable individuals," he says. "We're going to give them special tools and funding to go after the violators, catch them on their bail conditions and put them in jail."
Leardi says that violent repeat offenders travel from spot to spot.
"You might find a repeat offender who originates in Toronto, you might find them gassing up in LaSalle in violation of their bail conditions," he says. "So we're going to empower the police to go after them, find them in violation of their bail conditions, arrest them and put them back in jail where they belong."
The BCWA Grant is part of a $112 million investment aimed at the province's bail system and ensure repeat and violent offenders comply with their bail and court-ordered conditions.
Other initiatives include:
- The creation of a Bail Compliance Unit within the OPP's Repeat Offender Parole Enforcement (ROPE) Squad
- The establishment of Intensive Serious Violent Crime Bail Teams within the court system
- A new province-wide bail compliance dashboard to help monitor high-risk offenders with the most accurate data possible
With files from The Shift