This week, the Lethbridge Police Service is hosting frontline police, justice, health and social service workers from across Western Canada, as part of the Social Disorder and Urban Crime Conference.
The first of its kind event in Alberta was proposed and planned by Sgt. Ryan Darroch of the Downtown Policing Unit. The goal is to collaborate with other agencies and share best practices, promote partnerships, facilitate meaningful intervention strategies and develop sustainable solutions to reduce the harm caused by addictions, mental health issues, poverty, crime and social disorder faced by communities throughout Canada.
Darroch notes the vision of the conference was to bring together different police services to walk through what is working and what’s not working and learn from each other’s successes and failures. “As we’ve seen, there is no one answer to all these problems we’re seeing in Western Canada in relation to the drug crisis. It’s important to learn from other organizations to save ourselves time, money and wasted resources.”
According to Darroch, collaboration and working with community partners are key. “With our health organizations, our shelter operators and manage our problems we’re seeing on the streets through a collaborative and balanced approach of community engagement and enforcement.”
One of the most consistent trends learned thus far from the conference is the messaging methamphetamines is extremely popular and is heavily used across Western Canada.
“When it comes to opiate deaths, the opiate crisis does draw a lot of attention to the media because a lot of good people are losing their lives and that heavily impacts our families in southern Alberta. What doesn’t get highlighted is the impact of methamphetamine. It’s equally as destructive in destroying a person’s life, family and our social economic situations within our urban centres and downtown cores,” states Darroch.
Lethbridge’s Lawlessness Task Force was put together to address some of the problems faced in the downtown core. “We’re highlighting and trying to figure out what solutions we can come up with. It has been interesting to see what other organizations and police services are doing to be successful in this fight. Not one of us has all the answers. I think I’ve really learned that from this process,” says Darroch.
Darroch adds approximately 130 attendees participated in the conference from across Western Canada, including B.C. and Saskatchewan. “Who are all attempting to tackle this big problem and we’re all having the same problems. This is not an isolated thing in Lethbridge. We’re all having the same problems with methamphetamine and opiate use and the destruction and social disorder that comes from that.”
When it comes to mischief and damage within the city’s downtown core, Darroch says, a solution is for residents to report official complaints. “If you’re a victim of a mischief event contact us, so we can log and properly collect that data and put pieces of the puzzle together. We’ve had some successes in 2024 with charging several people with several larger scale mischief events.”
Looking after each other, as neighbours, is another solution. “Being there for people. If you see something that looks wrong, give us a call. We’re doing our very best to get there in a timely fashion. I understand people are frustrated. Every little piece of evidence can be the key portion of a very complex investigation.”
One thing LPS has received a lot of questions about during the conference is the city’s Clean Sweep program, which is run by the Downtown Lethbridge Business Revitalization Zone.
“Our Clean Sweep program is cutting edge. It’s amazing. One of the hardest parts, when it comes to social disorder, encampment, clean up and that kind of stuff – the level of garbage and disruption that comes from those events – someone needs to clean that up. Our Clean Sweep program has caught a lot of attention. Everyone is asking how we operate that. We’ve been proud to share that information,” notes Darroch.
