The Winnipeg Police Board in December tasked the service with making the protection of aboriginal women a priority in the next strategic plan, and last week it received its first status report, which was presented by Superintendent Danny Smyth.JOHN WOODS/The Canadian Press
The blue lines on the multicoloured chart represent the hundreds of Winnipeg homicide victims dating back to 1980 whose ethnicity is unknown to authorities – a gap in data-collection recently acknowledged by the city's police service.
The Winnipeg Police Board in December tasked the service with making the protection of aboriginal women a priority in the next strategic plan, and last week it received its first status report, which was presented by Superintendent Danny Smyth.
"What the board exercise established for me was that we could do a better job collecting the victim's information," Supt. Smyth said, adding that the force started mandating the collection of information about a victim's race within the past year or so. "On a go-forward basis, we're going to be more aware and try to tactfully collect that information [from victims]."
Here are some key numbers from Supt. Smyth's recent presentation to the board:
There have been 758 homicide victims in Winnipeg since 1980; the Winnipeg Police Service has a homicide clearance rate (rate at which charges are laid) of 92 per cent.Crime analysts found 63 unsolved homicides since 1980, six of which involve aboriginal women.
The Winnipeg Police Service receives more than 6,500 missing-person reports annually, averaging roughly 550 per month.
There are currently 37 long-term missing-person files, two of which involve aboriginal women.Chronic runaways comprised 79 per cent of missing-person files in 2014.
The police service has a dedicated Homicide Unit and a Historical Homicide Unit; 18 full-time investigators are assigned to these units.
Project Devote, a joint WPS-RCMP task force reinvestigating unsolved homicides and missing-person files involving women, is currently managing 29 cases. Its members have taken more than 550 statements from people across the country.