Response times in Whitecourt for certain priority calls are above the provincial average, showed RCMP data for 2021

The Whitecourt RCMP stats from 2021 and the detachment’s goals and objectives were shared with the Whitecourt and Woodlands County Councils last week. Staff Sargent Ted Zadderey and NCO Sargent Matt Clark attended both meetings, virtual for the Town and in person for the County.

Staff Sargent Zadderey explained that, through the Protective Services Committee, they come up with priority issues for their communities, some of which are directed and some decided. “In 2021, for example, the three unit/community objectives were community engagement, crime reduction and traffic safety. Those are three things that we target, and we try to set goals and measurables through the year to better enhance our services to the community. Community engagement has been one of the key topics and something that we are trying to improve on through townhall meetings with the communities.”

Zadderey said they had planned a town hall event in Blue Ridge next month. “We are hoping to make ourselves more accessible to the public, answer questions and hopefully work through some barriers that have existed in the past. This is something that we are going to continue through 2022.” Crime reduction remains an ongoing focus, as does traffic safety. Zadderey explained that they update their unit objectives each year and bring them to Councils for their approval.

The Whitecourt detachment currently has 22 officers. “We have 16 constables, four corporals, one Sargent and one Staff Sargent. Three of those positions are Woodlands County enhanced positions, and four of them, with a corporal, are provincial positions. Of course, that doesn’t include our Integrated Traffic Unit, which is in a different building, so we actually have more officers and sheriffs in town than that,” noted Zadderey.

Last year, in 2021, municipal calls for service were at 3,910, and provincial calls for service reached 1,188, totalling 5,098 with both combined, an average of 425 per month. These numbers are for new files. Zadderey mentioned they also work on older, unclosed files, which is an added workload. “Our calls aren’t solved immediately. They are laboursome, and they take quite a bit of time,” he said.

The difference between a municipal and a provincial call comes down to the location. “Our municipal calls happen within the municipality of Whitecourt, and our provincial calls happen outside of that municipality, in Woodlands County jurisdiction or that surrounding area. If a Woodlands County resident has a call in the municipality, it’s still a municipality call. If a Whitecourt resident has a call in Woodlands County, it’s still a Woodlands County call. We don’t look at residency. We look at location,” explained Zadderey. “With the numbers, you can figure out that with 1,188 calls of service to the province and 3,910 in the municipality, you can see how the numbers weigh in terms of calls of service. Of course, time per call in Woodlands County takes longer only because of the geographical location where you have to travel further to get places.”

Last year in Whitecourt, RCMP conducted roughly 1,023 condition and curfew checks. Zadderey explained that these checks are proactive steps. “People in our community that are on conditions put on by the courts.. we make sure they are abiding by those conditions. We ensure that they know that we are going to check them. It’s something that we’ve found to work very well. If we check the people that commit the crimes, then we can keep tabs on where they are. We found that it makes our community much safer.”

Zadderey said that the number of individuals breaking their conditions was quite high at one point. “Our breach charges went up so immensely because of people breaking condition checks that Ottawa phoned and said, hey, what’s going on with your condition checks? What it means is that we are checking people, and if they are not abiding by the conditions, they are being charged for breaching those conditions. It often makes us look like a more dangerous community because our numbers are inflated but what it actually means is that we are putting people in check. Sometimes the numbers become skewed in that vein, but quite honestly, that’s our job to make sure that people that are on conditions are abiding by those conditions and overall to keep our community safe.”

One area that Zadderey said is low is the engagement the detachment has with the youth. He said the barriers of COVID have kept their events down. “We had 212 youth-related events, school visits, school talks, community engagement events, not including the regular community engagement events that we normally do. We feel in our detachment that it is very important to deal with our community’s youth. Normally in a year, we would have 4-5-600 contacts with our youth in the schools. COVID’s obviously made it very difficult. Though not one of our unit objectives, I think our youth is a national priority. The more we know our kids, the better we do to serve our community, and we can help.”

Zadderey said one key thing to mention is that the Whitecourt detachment sees experienced officers wanting to move to the area now. “They are recognizing that this is a good community and is a supportive community, and there are opportunities for children and opportunities for various lifestyles. We’re now seeing for the first time in years that people want to come back here.”

Whitecourt conducted 184 proactive traffic operations last year. That includes check stops and joint operations with the different agencies. For calls within Whitecourt, the top three files by workload were Mental Health Act (9.55 percent), Other Non-Moving Traffic (6.17 percent), and Sexual Assault (3.70 percent). When looking at the numbers specific to file types, by count, the top three are Other Non-Moving Traffic (450), Other Moving Traffic Violations (205), and Mental Health Act (199). Response time in Whitecourt is below the provincial average (10-15 minutes), with most calls for Priority 1 and 2 having response times of five to ten minutes. Response time outside of the community is at the provincial average for Priority 1 and 2 calls.