SAFER COMMUNITIES We are all part of the solution – working together we’ll make Manitoba safer for everyone. MORE PREVENTION: We will work with Ottawa and create new laws to make gang recruitment a crime. We will put police officers on the streets, walking in neighbourhoods to prevent crimes before they happen. 50 additional police officers will be hired to walk the beat in Winnipeg, including downtown. We will fund 25 additional cadets for downtown Winnipeg. We will expand the successful School Resource Officers program to provide 2 more police officers in Winnipeg schools. We will not give up on the potential of our children. We will set up a new program called After School Matters to provide mentorship and leadership development to kids. Our new jail facilities, including rebuilding the Dauphin jail, will have better addictions treatment and mental health programs to prevent criminals from re-offending. FASTER PROSECUTION: We will establish the first-in-Canada weekend court, using retired judges, to add capacity to the court system. We are hiring 53 new prosecutors and 29 paralegal and clerical staff by 2016. We will add more court clerks inside and outside the courtroom to make the courts work more efficiently. We will relocate the Small Claims Court to make space for more criminal cases to move through the system. WORK WITH OTTAWA TO IMPROVE THE LAW: Federal Laws New federal laws should create mandatory minimum sentences for pre-meditated knife crimes and treat these crimes just as seriously as those committed with guns. We need the federal law to have separate, additional offences for home invasions and car jackings – violent crimes for which the penalties should match the severity. We will push the federal government to make serious arson a crime against a person, instead of a crime against property, and it needs to be declared a violent crime. The federal Youth Criminal Justice Act must allow judges to consider deterrence and denunciation when they are handing down sentences. The Act must be amended to ensure that violent, repeat offenders can be held in jail without bail, and can be tried as adults where appropriate. Provincial Laws We will create new, additional penalties for criminals who threaten the safety of police officers and fire fighters by booby-trapping meth labs and grow ops. We will create penalties for people who use animals when committing crimes – to guard drug dens, for example. MORE TOOLS TO COMBAT CRIME: We will hire 50 new police officers for rural and northern communities, including 5 for Brandon. We will expand the successful Winnipeg police cadet program to northern and rural communities to free up officers for real police work, with 25 new cadets. We will continue to work with Ottawa to reduce the amount of time that police are required to attend court proceedings for routine matters. We will expand the use of electronic monitoring bracelets, in consultation with the police, to people convicted of sex offences, domestic assaults, and other dangerous criminals. We will add 6 more investigators under the Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods Act that has closed 509 problem properties, including drug, sniff and prostitution houses, since its establishment in 2002. We will add 3 more investigators for the Winnipeg Arson Strike Force through the Office of the Fire Commissioner. We will add 3 more investigators for Criminal Property Forfeiture Unit that seized the Hells Angels’ Clubhouse. We will fund the RCMP and Winnipeg Police Service integrated Warrant Enforcement Unit and streamline police access to information contained in government databases to track down and apprehend individuals with outstanding warrants.
