Mayor Andrew Knack and councillor Anne Stevenson called on the provincial and federal governments for better support for detainee releases in Edmonton during a press event on Monday. The mayor addressed concerns about the release of a detainee who was dropped off by provincial correctional services in a Chinatown parking lot without any support on Sept. 3.
Citizens raised concerns about how Alberta offenders are reintegrated into the city after a surveillance video caught a former detainee being released from a provincial correctional services van into a parking lot near Chinatown’s Pacific Mall, a few blocks away from Hope Mission’s downtown location.
Knack opened his speech at Monday’s press event by noting that this problem isn’t new to Edmonton, given the concentration of correctional facilities in the city.
“Edmonton is the jail capital of the country,” said Knack, citing that the city has the highest concentration of correctional facilities in the country. “The disproportionate pressure that our city faces due to the concentration of these services means that we need a uniquely Edmonton approach.”
Knack noted that the city does what it can to help alleviate these pressures, but it simply doesn’t have “the same legal tools as provincial and federal governments.”
“We need willing partners, especially when this work falls under other jurisdictions,”
– Mayor Andrew Knack.
Knack says he spoke with the minister of public safety and emergency services, Mike Ellis, about the circumstances, during which Ellis allegedly emphasized the importance of a “warm handoff” approach when releasing offenders, connecting them with appropriate resources, and ensuring they still have those supports long term.
“Leaving someone in a parking lot is not connecting them to services,” says Stevenson. She says it is frustrating to see the province actively contributing to the challenges the city faces.
Stevenson spoke about the existing organizations in the city, noting that a particular non-profit has accumulated a waitlist of 350 individuals seeking reintegration support.
“We have the model, we have the solutions. Provincial reintegration coordination framework is what we’re asking for,”
– Councillor AnneStevenson.
A reporter at the event asked Knack what the city can do to maintain public safety without provincial government involvement, to which Knack responded that the city’s only tool is the police.
“We can keep putting money into policing, but that’s not actually gonna solve the problem,” says Knack. “If that was able to solve the problem, then the massive investment that we’ve done in policing over the last four years would have been the shift that we needed.”
