The Yorkton HUB Management Steering Committee has released a report that it presented at its Community Unity Luncheon before Christmas.
The HUB program in Yorkton dates to June of 2012 and a recognition that police, government, or any single group working alone, cannot significantly reduce crime. The collaborative approach came out of the provincial Crime Reduction Project that consulted with stakeholders and produced a paper entitled Building Partnerships to Reduce Crime.
The local committee brings together the RCMP, school divisions, First Nations groups, the health region, social services, the City, Fire Protective Services with an eye to mitigating the risk factors that lead to crime.
The Yorkton report publishes presents data on risk trends garnered from 228 local situations analyzed between November 1, 2013 and October 31, 2014. It breaks down risk by age group, gender, type and category.
Adults 18-64 were most likely to be at risk at 52 per cent followed by youth 12-17 at 36 per cent.
Women and girls outnumbered men and boys 47 per cent to 40 per cent. The remaining 13 per cent were situations in which multiple genders were involved (i.e., families, couples).
The most common type of risk situation was individual persons at 65 per cent followed by family at 32 per cent. The two other types of situations, neighbourhood and dwelling only registered one per cent each.
Categories of risk factors include miscellaneous, child welfare, addictions, mental health, domestic-related, housing, criminality, physical health and elderly abuse. Miscellaneous led the way with 30 per cent followed by child welfare, addictions and mental health at 21, 18 and 17 per cent respectively.
The top 10 reported risk factors were suspected mental health problem, antisocial or negative behaviour, associating with negative peers, alcohol use, alcohol abuse, perpetrating emotional violence, being a victim of emotional violence, antisocial or negative behaviour in the home and drug use.
Through working together and sharing information, the HUB was able to connect 61 per cent of the people involved in these situations with services. A further 19 per cent received information about services. Only 11 per cent were uncooperative and refused services altogether.
Moving forward the local HUB plans to refine the practice, track systemic issues and continue to collaboratively intervene with at-risk persons.
