There are certain crime statistics Areni Kelleppan, executive director of Stop Abuse in Families (SAIF), would like made publicly available, but she has concerns new legislation that promises annual crime data to the public might be meaningless for many.
“I think everybody has the right to know crime statistics. It's just whether [the province is] going to be sharing anything different, or anything more pertinent to Alberta than what we already see in the Statistics Canada data. If that's not the case, then the legislation is meaningless,” she said.
On March 22, Justice Minister and Solicitor General Tyler Shandro introduced the Public’s Right to Know Act (Bill 9) to the Alberta legislature which, if passed, would require the province to report crime data annually on the government's website while also requiring a report to be tabled annually in the legislature.
In a press statement, the province said the legislation will offer a consistent and user-friendly approach to crime statistics and would include currently available metrics such as police-reported crime data for Albertans.
But whether or not the legislation will be useful for organizations that depend on crime statistics to serve communities or whether or not it will break down the data regionally, has yet to be determined.
Organizations such as SAIF use crime data to track trends to decide what programming to offer to support the community.
“We don't want to be behind the eight ball, and we don't want to be addressing a problem that's already far gone. We want to be in front of it,” said Kelleppan.
SAIF has been asking for statistics on probation, for example. SAIF used to get that data from the RCMP before the local detachment lost funding for an analyst, said Kelleppan.
“We haven't been able to access that kind of information. I don't know if this legislation would open the doors to that [or if it] would make those stats available, or if those stats are being collected or correlated,” she said.
If SAIF had statistics on probation and saw a need in the community for a program only available in communities that can show they have the numbers for it, SAIF could lobby the province.
If SAIF had St. Albert- or Sturgeon County-specific data on sexual assault, the organization could make a case for a sexual assault centre.
Currently the only one available in the area is in Edmonton.
“Their adult wait list for counseling services for rape victims, or those who are survivors of rape, is 12 to 14 months. There is a need for more sexual assault services — we would love to have some in our own community,” she said.
Kelleppan is firm that SAIF isn't looking for personal data or private statistics.
“We're looking for the amalgamated general statistics that will tell us the number of individuals, not who those individuals are,” she said.
Kelleppan said there is so much data collected through the justice system, but it is often not shared with agencies if they are not part of the legal system.
“If they're saying, ‘Hey, we're going to release all this other information that we tend to have at our fingertips, but don't necessarily release,’ I think that would be fantastic,” she said.
Brian Anderson, president of St. Albert Citizen’s Patrol Society doubts the new legislation will be useful for SACPS.
“I'm not sure if those stats from the Right to Know, are going to be really that helpful because of lack of detail,” he said. “I don't suspect those crime stats will tell you that a certain block or a certain corner of, let's say, Grandin is suffering from domestic violence, because they want to protect some of the privacy concerns of the citizens in those areas.”
However, Anderson said any information they can get is helpful for crime prevention groups in directing their activities, but it depends on the detail the province plans on releasing.
Anderson said SACPS gets data from the RCMP. When the business parks were having problems with break-ins, the liaison officer brought it to their attention.
Anderson doesn’t think the provincial data will be enlightening for citizens or communities
“I think what's already reported in the news and media, especially social media, I think people are almost inundated with things. I don't see the new legislation having much of an impact,” he said.
In an email to The Gazette, Joseph Dow, Shandro's press secretary, said if this legislation is passed, it would be the first of its kind in the country and would create a requirement for the government to report crime-related information at regular intervals.
Dow said it is too early to define what information will be available, how it will be presented, or how it will be broken down.
“We are still determining how data in the first report will be presented. The plan, over time, is to keep refining and enhancing what users will be able to do and we hope to acquire different types of data from additional sources through information-sharing agreements that this legislation would enable,” he said.
Dow said it will begin with primarily police-reported crime data.
“The metrics that will be included in the initial scheduled report (likely in fall 2022) are just that, an initial collection of information — which will be expanded over time to increasingly benefit individuals, organizations, and communities,” he said.
