Williams Lake Councillor Scott Nelson says he is “fed up and tired” of prolific offenders terrorizing the Community.
At Tuesday night’s city council meeting, after hearing the Williams Lake RCMP’s quarterly crime update, Nelson proposed looking into drastic options for dealing with prolific offenders.
Nelson’s idea: close the city jails “temporarily.”
Nelson said his recommendation is largely due to the municipality having its “hands tied” by the current justice system. He said he understood and applauded the police for doing their jobs and all the hard work on catching criminals. However, the judicial system re-releases the criminals back onto the streets. Nelson also said that his recommendation would only account for what he called “the core group of prolific offenders” who have been caught numerous times.
“There’s one thing that we do have, and that’s call control over the jails,” Nelson said. “So frankly, if you want to get serious and you want to remove the criminals off your streets, if the Crown Counsel and the judges won’t do it for you, you’ve got a choice. I’d close your jails temporarily for 60 days, because they would export them. It’s going to cost them, but they’re going to be removed from this community.”
Nelson said that if the jails are closed, the police would have to take the prolific offenders to the next community that has the space available and to be prosecuted there.
“Frankly, it rids our community of the parasites that are driving our community crazy and terrorizing our community,” Nelson said. “If the province can’t house them in a nonprofit organization, in a housing facility built for them, and they kick them back onto the streets of Williams Lake, why would the City of Williams Lake take that onus and that responsibility on? They have no respect for our community.”
“We know we can’t ban them, but we can certainly ship them out.”
Acting Officer in Charge Staff Sergeant Brad McKinnon said he and the police “echo the council’s and community’s frustrations”, and reiterated that police are doing work with Interior Health to be proactive on the street disorder, not just reactive. McKinnon said that police are seeing success with their continued partnerships, albeit “not always as quickly as we want, but we are making gains.”
When asked about other challenges from councillors, McKinnon said that there are many different “silos” within the justice system that all have distinct and unique roles, that work collaboratively, but operate independently. McKinnon said that moving a criminal out of a community could have some challenges, maybe “not my bakery, so to speak.”
McKinnon also said that he would hold his personal opinion on the matter, but it is an “interesting concept.”
Every other councillor had their turn to speak on the matter.
Councillor Sheila Boehm was for the emergency public community meeting, with the caveat that the meeting should be driven by the RCMP and look at solutions.
“I just think as a group we are stronger together,” said Boehm. “I think the more people and the more solutions you have by the whole community, I am certainly okay if the RCMP is, with having a meeting with anyone who is worried about the downside of what’s going on.”
Councillor Joan Flaspohler echoed Councillor Boehm, but was cautious of the idea of closing jails. She wondered if a city council could even do such a concept. She hoped she could get more data from the police and staff on what is possible ahead of a community meeting.
“I am also somewhat fearful that it[the meeting] could be set up so that it would appear as a ‘mudslinging’ session, and that I don’t want to see,” said Flaspohler. “If whatever’s to be set up is something to create solutions to these issues, wonderful. But if it is set up where it’s going to be a session of people angrily expressing their furstrations and their fears with no solutions, then I can’t support that.”
Councillor Angie Delainey was also in favour of the public meeting and understood Councillor Nelson’s “political card” he was playing, and said it was something that she didn’t “completely disagree with”, though it was not her style.
“Maybe we can find a few more solutions that are grassroots. Maybe they’re a little bit outside the box, but in a way that we’re not breaking any more rules or causing more angst for another community. I don’t love Mr. Nelson’s political style, but it works sometimes. So I can’t say that I am totally opposed if we were going to look at something like that.”
After 52 minutes of deliberation, Mayor Surinderpal Rathor had “given everyone many chances to speak on this now” and called for a vote.
Nelson’s recommendation read:
“That Council request staff to hold an emergency community public meeting to include the RCMP, Crown Prosecution, the business community, Interior Health, social service agencies and shelters, and other key stakeholders to address the street disorder and the mischief in the community, as well as other options of closing our jails temporarily to transport the key criminals out of the community, and that the MP and MLA be invited to attend.”
Councillors Flaspohler and Michael Moses made a motion to have closing the jails treated as a separate option. However, that motion was defeated.
In the end, the Council unanimously approved to have an emergency community public meeting at a later date.
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