North Shore Community Safety Patrol Update

On Tuesday, went out with 27 other people and was part of the first North Shore Community Patrol in Kamloops. We went out from 7pm to 9pm. We witnessed a few questionable things going on and, for the most part, the people involved dispersed very quickly once they saw us watching them. I spent much of the time walking with some wonderful ladies who live on the North Shore and they pointed out a lot of things I was not aware of - good and bad. They have an abiding love of their neighborhood and they are deeply concerned about the drug houses that have been started amongst them. They pointed a drug house out as we walked on a quiet, otherwise very beautiful street. It was very quiet when we went by (perhaps it wasn't open yet), but I drove by later in the evening and saw it open. It made me very angry. One of my new friends told the group that one elderly couple who have lived in the same house for almost 50 years had felt the need to finally lock their doors two years ago.

As angry as I feel about drug dealers, I feel very bad for people with addictions and/or who are selling their bodies on the streets. It must be, in fact Im damn sure it is, horrible. And I don't believe the solution is to drive them somewhere else. I think we have to try as hard as we can to help these people get clean and live of life of life of dignity and happiness. Whatever success we have, however small, is worth the effort.

The Community Patrol had another training this evening and I invited a friend of mine who is a street outreach worker to attend. She brought two of her colleagues with her. It was a little tense because the outreach workers don't currently seem to think much of the patrol. But, I wanted to try to create a working relationship so that the patrol can be seen as a friendly thing, not a hostile thing to people who already down and out.

If I had thought it through better, I might have invited the outreach workers to a smaller meeting first, so that we could have ironed out some of the differences. Unfortunately, I had to leave the meeting early. I spent much time after fretting about how the meeting would go. I will try to find out tomorrow.

Comments

[ironcat]

Can only North Shore residents get involved in this project?

[Mike Maddison]

Hi Arjun,

Just a comment as a parent with young children and also as one concerned for the elderly. I agree with your statement "And I don't believe the solution is to drive them somewhere else." in part. I don't think it's a 'solution' to drive them somewhere else, but we're risking serious harm to many innocent people, young and old, if we don't.

The solution, at the core of course, is to help people through their hard times. The facts - during the time that their lives are engaged in drugs and various illicit activities, they are most likely to harm others.

One of the hardest parts of helping others is the risk that comes with it. How we balance and deal with that risk is a tough question.

[Darryl Schmidt]

If this were a simple problem with a simple solution then I think that it wouldn't exist. Quite often the "solutions" presented and implimented attack one part of the problem and leave others.

I doubt that many young women choose prostitution as their career. We need to help them with what drove them to that in the first place. At the same time we need to attempt to remove the negative influence, typically drugs I'd assume.

Perhaps some social programs to help those already in trouble, police action to attempt to remove the drug problem, police action to protect the innocent victims, community participation for regular "patrols" and some other tactics to round out a full on attack.

Arrests and big busts make for good headlines but do nothing to combat the larger issues. I believe that driving the drug/prostitution scene to another area of town only makes it a larger problem.

[Arjun Singh]

Ironcat: I think any concerned citizen can particpate. Although I grew up on the North Shore, I now live in Sahali.

Mike and Darryl: I do currently think we need to find the best methods of helping the prostitutes. I think we should help the drug dealers too, but only after we have shut the overt trade - the drug houses, etc. It is such a thorny issue. The priority should be on protecting the "good people".