Police commissioners to discuss enforcement around Pleasant Hill

Saskatoon's board of police commissioners meets Thursday for its regular monthly business meeting.

The seven-member board has a mandate under provincial law to oversee the Saskatoon Police Service, and is made up of four volunteers from the public and three members of city council, including the mayor.

PLEASANT HILL

Three more officers will join the police force's community mobilization unit (CMU), originally an eight-officer team set up in July 2020 to patrol the area around the safe drug consumption site on 20th Street West operated by Prairie Harm Reduction (formerly AIDS Saskatoon).

Members of the Pleasant Hill Community Association have in recent months addressed the police board and city council, calling for more policing resources beyond the corridor patrolled by the CMU.

A report to the board notes seven new constables provided for in the 2024 municipal budget will soon have finished their training programs. The police force plans to redeploy three current constables from patrol to the CMU effective May 1, which will then expand its foot patrols deeper into the Pleasant Hill neighbourhood.

PACT PROGRAM

Another report to the commissioners includes an evaluation of last year's activities by the Police and Crisis Teams (PACT) program.

The PACT program pairs a police officer with a mental health social worker to attend mental health or addictions-related calls. City police, the Saskatchewan Health Authority

and the provincial health ministry collaborate and provide funding.

City police added a fourth PACT unit in October 2023, which allows one unit to be available for each of the police force's four shifts.

PACT dispatches rose by several hundred a year between 2019, when they were deployed 949 times, and 2022, when 2,614 calls required their support. The upward trend appears to have slowed over the last year, with 2,632 dispatches in 2023.

The goals of the PACT program include reducing emergency room visits and repeat calls for service and, where possible, diverting people with mental health and addiction issues away from the justice system.

Those efforts often translate into significant cost savings, particularly for the health authority. The report notes that in 2019, the minimum cost of an emergency room visit was $800, while it cost at least $450 for police to keep someone overnight in their holding cells. After estimating inflation, these rise to $918.96 for an ER visit and $516.91 for an overnight stay in the detention unit.

In 2023, the PACT program is reported to have diverted 452 people from emergency rooms and kept 43 out of the detention unit, for a total estimated savings of $437,597.05.

Although “every attempt possible” is made to avoid taking people to hospitals, the report notes hospital emergency departments continue to be “overburdened and short on rooms.” This can create a challenge for the PACT program, as teams must still wait with people who do need to be brought the ER, leaving the team unable to deploy for other calls.