The Windsor Police Service is reporting a decrease in crime in the Glengarry neighbourhood since launching a focused approach to address problems in that part of downtown.
Chief Jason Bellaire told Thursday's Windsor Police Services Board meeting that crimes against people are down 32 per cent in the neighbourhood, identified as the top place for violent crime in the city.
There were also zero violent crimes reported in 12 out of the 16 weeks since the effort began.
At the end of August, officers began regular patrols inside Wheelton Manor, and dedicated officers were stationed inside the apartment building at 333 Glengarry Ave., right at the corner of University Avenue East.
The push to address crime in the neighbourhood has also included community partner organizations on-site in the building with police, such as social workers with the Crisis Response Team and members of the Nurse-Police Team, to help provide access to wraparound services.
Bellaire says the social workers know the social services sector and the health and human services sector better than police do.
"We don't have that knowledge, and that's not what we're supposed to do," he says. "So when they're there and they're doing that work, we're starting to see that follow-through and the reduction in repeat victims and recidivist offenders and things like that."
"Treating people humanly but treating people firmly and giving people an opportunity to thrive, giving them an opportunity to connect to services," he says.
Since the end of August, crimes against property are also down 10 per cent in the Glengarry neighbourhood, drug crimes are down 30 per cent, while cases of intimate partner violence are down 34 per cent since September.
Bellaire says the whole program was an experiment to see what they could do, and so far, it's been successful.
"The Glengarry neighbourhood went from far and away our number one violent neighbourhood and our number one, simultaneously, neighbourhood for intimate partner violence; it's now way down. Still high up in the order but not the runaway first place that it was since this intervention," he says.
Due to the success of the Glengarry initiative, police are planning to launch a targeted effort in another Windsor neighbourhood in the coming weeks to address specific issues and high calls for service.