Calgary police say supervised drug site area saw limited uptick in crime compared with downtown

Open this photo in gallery:

Rates of reported incidents of violence, break-and-enters and vehicle crimes increased at a slower rate in the immediate vicinity of Calgary’s only supervised drug consumption site than in the rest of the downtown core, according to police statistics.

The city’s police service says the latest data show the force’s efforts to curb crime and disorder near the site are paying off, as the provincial government considers whether to close or move the Calgary site and others across the province.

The Calgary Police Service has been releasing data comparing reported crime and disorder in the 250-metre radius around the supervised consumption site, known as Safeworks and located in an urgent-care centre, with the rest of the city. The site opened Oct. 30, 2017, in the Sheldon M. Chumir Health Centre.

The data show reported cases of violence, break-and-enters and vehicle crimes near the supervised consumption site are generally on the rise, but the actual number of incidents in the zone did not dramatically jump in the first nine month of 2019. In some cases, rates dropped. Reported crime across the city also generally rose, with the growth rate downtown outpacing that near the consumption site.

The United Conservative Party government is considering closing or moving some sites after launching a review last year. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, who has referred to the province’s seven harm-reduction facilities as “NDP drug sites,” argues the report produced from that review, which has not yet been released, demonstrates criminal activity and disorder around consumption sites has increased.

There were 15 reported cases of violence in the 250-m radius around Calgary’s supervised consumption site in the third quarter of 2019, compared with the three-year quarterly average of 16 incidents, according to the most recent police statistics.

There were 13 violent occurrences in the second quarter, compared to an average of 12; and seven cases in the first quarter, up from an average of five. The quarterly reports note large swaths of the cases of violence were directed at staff in or near the Chumir Centre.

The police service clocked 10,000 hours of pro-active policing in the area near the consumption site in 2019, according to Inspector Rob Davidson, who is in charge of the district that encompasses Calgary’s downtown and the consumption-site zone. That is the equivalent of deploying 10 constables and a sergeant in the area at all times, he said. The department’s data, he said, prove the effort around the Chumir Centre is paying off.

“We’re starting to have a positive impact over suppressing some of the issues in the area,” Insp. Davidson said. “I think we’re holding a continued, positive trend.”

About a quarter of the violent incidents in the third quarter were directed toward staff at the Chumir Centre, with either bear spray or knives deployed in just under half of the cases, the police service said. Most of the cases in the second quarter were related to the health facility, but in the first quarter, all violence reports, save for one, in the buffer zone were unrelated to each other or the consumption site, the police said.

The public’s view of crime and disorder in the consumption site’s 250-m radius can be distorted when the figures are calculated as percentages, according to Michael Adorjan, a professor in the University of Calgary’s sociology department who specializes in criminology and perceptions of police. The two additional occurrences of violence in the first quarter, for example, translate into a 40-per-cent increase, for example.

“It is very easy to focus on percentage differences," he said.

The provincial government declined to comment on the new police statistics, noting that it is digesting information from a government-created panel. Funding for Alberta’s seven sites expires at the end of March.

“At this point we cannot comment on data included in the [panel’s] report, but I can assure you that any decisions made will be based on evidence,” Kassandra Kitz, a spokeswoman for the Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, said in a statement.

The Chumir Centre is Calgary’s only inner-city hospital, and houses health services ranging from travel vaccinations to mental-health care. It is in the Beltline, the city’s second-most populous neighbourhood, with 25,100 residents, according to Calgary’s 2019 census. (Panorama Hills, a suburban area near the outskirts of the city, hosts 25,700 people.) The supervised consumption site’s buffer zone encompasses a library, a park that covers an entire block, condos, apartments, bars and restaurants, businesses and a church. The Chumir facility and its parking lot take up a block within the zone.

The police department’s centre city zone includes the Beltline; Chinatown; Eau Claire; and the downtown commercial core, East Village and west end. In the third quarter, there were 333 reports of violence, up 76 cases or 30 per cent, compared to the three-year quarterly average; 247 incidents, up three cases or 1 per cent, in the second quarter; and 240 reports, up 49 occurrences or 25 per cent, over the comparable average in the first three months of the year, according to CPS. Violence statistics exclude domestic violence.

Reported break-and-enter and vehicle crimes – which include vehicle theft and theft from vehicles – similarly demonstrate trends in Calgary’s centre city are more troublesome than the consumption site’s figures.

Calgary’s consumption facility tallied 116,965 visits between its opening and Nov. 30, 2019, according to Alberta Health Services. Roughly 1,100 people collectively visited the facility 6,112 times last November. Staff thwarted 43 overdoses that month, according to AHS. Methamphetamine use dominates the facility. Not all visits involve consuming drugs. Roughly 17 per cent of visits last November involved receiving harm-reduction supplies or naloxone kits; being monitored after consuming drugs elsewhere; receiving wound care; or meeting with a social worker.

We have a weekly Western Canada newsletter written by our B.C. and Alberta bureau chiefs, providing a comprehensive package of the news you need to know about the region and its place in the issues facing Canada. Sign up today.