REGINA -- Regina and other Saskatchewan communities are seeing high rates of youth crime, according to MacLean’s Magazine’s Crime Severity Index released this week.
Seven Saskatchewan cities were among the top 16 communities across Canada.
North Battleford moved from first place last year to second place this year, but its crime rate is up with 385 incidents reported.
As for Prince Albert, Yorkton, Saskatoon, Regina and Moose Jaw, youth crime numbers were up over the past year.
Swift Current’s youth crime rate dropped, but that city still wound up in the sixth spot.
The numbers don’t look good, but work is being done here in Regina to help tackle the issue of youth crime.
Mike Gerrand with the Street Culture Project says the community working together is the only way to change the trends, “It’s one of the things I’m most proud of in the non-profit sector here in Regina is that we are coming together because it’s such a big issue that we’re tackling here,” he said.
Street Culture houses 35 kids that come from a variety of at-risk situations and they work to build relationships with the kids to help keep them away from gangs, crime and drugs.
“If you can build trusting relationships, the kids trust you and will more than likely move onto better choices,” Gerrand said. “If it’s a place where they’re judged or they don’t feel safe than they’re not going to come, so we foster a very safe environment here where kids can grow, where they can develop and move on with their lives.”
According to Street Culture, it’s going to take communities working together to start lowering the youth crime rate in Saskatchewan.
“Let’s face it, this is not a problem that we can arrest our way out of,” Gerrand said. “It’s going to take a concerted effort to try and change some lives. For some of these children, it took 12 or 13 years for them to get in the trouble that they’re in and it will take at least that long to help them move on with their lives.”
