Halifax’s violence problem is real, says a wide-ranging report on crime in the metro area.

"This isn’t a figment of someone’s imagination," Dalhousie University criminologist Don Clairmont told regional councillors Friday.

RELATED
» Click here to read the report
» Click here to go to the Mayor's Roundtable on Violence website
» Clairmont: Race relations committee must work on tough issues

He said the 650-page report shows "overwhelming" evidence of a "serious problem of violence and public safety in HRM."

Mr. Clairmont recommends developing a full-time public safety co-ordinator, improving race relations and broadening the responsibilities of Halifax’s police forces as the first steps to curb violent crime.

The director of the Atlantic Institute of Criminology spent some 1,500 hours compiling the $68,000 report, which includes 64 recommendations that will be considered by council.

Much of the information comes from last year’s roundtable on violence, as well as a series of community meetings, stakeholder discussions, a 1,200-person phone poll and 2,350 written surveys.

Mr. Clairmont said there is a lack of confidence in municipal council to enact change on public safety issues. He said there is also an urgent need to revamp the city’s community and race relations advisory committee.

He recommended hiring a full-time public safety co-ordinator who will report to the mayor. He said the city should also appoint a safety advisory committee made up of councillors, police and representatives from minority and volunteer organizations.

Finally, Mr. Clairmont suggested Halifax Regional Police and RCMP establish community safety officers in high-risk, high-crime communities.

Those are the immediate steps that need to be taken, he said. There are dozens of others that could improve the city’s crime rate and the public’s perception of Halifax as a dangerous city.

The mayor praised the report and said he’s eager to look at implementing the primary recommendations. But, he added, that will take time and money.

"It’s a very powerful, intense document," Peter Kelly said. "We cannot not respond to it.

"But the funds are not there. The funds have to be there."

Council confirmed earlier this week that no money was set aside in city hall’s 2008-09 budget to enact the report’s recommendations.

"We need to make sure that this comes back to council with some very clear direction for discussion," Mr. Kelly said.

Council will then work with the provincial and federal governments to hopefully come up with the money needed to make the necessary changes, he said.

When asked if he will be pushing the recommendations on council, Mr. Kelly said he "shouldn’t have to arm-twist anybody."

"It should be a common-sense approach that we must need it, let’s get it done."

While there’s no word on funding, some of the work needed to implement some of the recommendations is already underway, Halifax Regional Police Chief Frank Beazley said.

The city has already approved Chief Beazley’s request for 24 new officers, all of whom will be slotted into north and east Dartmouth and the Fairview and Spryfield areas of Halifax, he said. As well, the province has approved 14 new RCMP officers for all of Halifax Regional Municipality.

The chief pointed out that police have already put cops back on the beat in Halifax in the downtown and uptown areas, which has helped lower the numbers.

"We’ve been doing a ton of crime analysis and then going out into what I call hot spots, and going into these high-crime areas," he said. "That’s why you’re seeing the crime starting to drop, because of the (new) style of policing and working with the communities."

The Mounties are still going over the report and had no comment Friday, RCMP spokesman Cpl. Joe Taplin said.

Mr. Kelly said "an accumulation of events in a very short time" led the city to organize the roundtable discussions that fuelled the report.

The violence came to a head Nov. 4, 2006, when American sailor Damon Crooks was stabbed to death outside a downtown Halifax nightclub.

That was barely a week after two violent swarmings at Pizza Corner, where the city later installed surveillance cameras.

When contacted Friday, Corwin Gooden, half-brother to Mr. Crooks, said he didn’t want to comment until he’d had a chance to read through the report.

Chief Beazley pointed out that the municipality’s crime rate has dropped over the past three years, yet the public is more worried than ever about safety.

"Nobody denies that the violent crime for a certain period was going up," he said.

But with more beat cops in the downtown and uptown areas, Chief Beazley said, robberies in peninsular Halifax have dropped in the first quarter of this year by 64 per cent over the same period last year.

Justice Minister Cecil Clarke, who called the report a "positive next step," said no one wants country-leading statistics when it comes to crime.

"I do accept that we have challenges here," Mr. Clarke told reporters. "But more importantly, we have the power of the partnerships that have come together. We will take the results of this latest study and we’ll put it into action as part of our wider and broader consultation."

Cole Harbour resident Mark Starratt knows first-hand of Halifax’s problem with violence.

"Certainly it’s real," he said Friday. "We have a bad reputation."

Mr. Starratt’s teenage son was swarmed and beaten in the doorway of his home while doling out Halloween candy in 2006. The culprits were never caught, he said.

Since the incident, Mr. Starratt hasn’t seen any more police in his neighbourhood, either patrolling the streets or the pathways near Cole Harbour Place and surrounding areas where other teens have been beaten up.

He wanted to see more police officers and specific plans to prevent violent crime, especially swarmings.

"They’re writing a big document that doesn’t do a darn bit of good towards anything," Mr. Starratt said.

"What’s in the report? An outline or a program that they could get to perhaps down the road. They spend so much time talking about it that nothing is ever going to happen, or if it does, by the time they implement it, it’s useless programs.

"Programs, programs, programs — do something."

( jstewart@herald.ca)

( pbrooks@herald.ca)