Dave Baxter
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Winnipeg Sun
The City of Brandon has joined a growing chorus of Manitoba municipalities and organizations asking for bail reform and for the justice system to keep repeat offenders behind bars and off the streets.
“For us, it is a real drain on our police resources to have our police continuously having to rearrest people that are breaking conditions of bail,” Brandon city councillor Bruce Luebky said at a Feb. 18 city council meeting in the western Manitoba city.
According to Luebky, the city recently received statistics from Brandon Police (BPS) that show that annually over the last three years there were approximately 1,200 criminal investigations and approximately 1,100 people charged in incidents that involved suspects who were out on bail or probationary conditions.
Luebky announced at the meeting that Brandon city council joins the Brandon Police Board in pursuit of bail reform. The two will send a letter asking for “immediate action” on the issue to federal and provincial justice officials and to Premier Wab Kinew.
The resolution states that increasing crime rates in Brandon have led to “heightened concern” among citizens for their safety, while it also states that BPS is seeing large amounts of calls for service to deal with offenders who are breaking bail conditions, probation conditions or court conditions.
“The safety of law-abiding citizens and the integrity of the justice system must be prioritized to maintain social order and public confidence,” the motion reads.
The current justice system’s policies on bail and sentencing often result in the “premature release of offenders, thereby undermining public trust in the justice system,” the statement reads.
The motion asks for policies that prevent the early release of offenders, “ensuring that individuals who pose a threat to public safety are adequately rehabilitated and no longer pose a risk to the community.” It goes on to demand that both levels of government “increase consequences” to those who violate release conditions, saying those changes would enhance public safety and increase accountability in the justice system.
Calls to keep offenders and specifically violent offenders behind bars have also come directly from Brandon’s Chief of Police Tyler Bates recently, after a disturbing incident in Brandon last month.
In January, BPS reported that a man who was out on bail for violent crimes that had taken place in Winnipeg approached a 67-year-old man on the street in Brandon and began an unprovoked beating with a baseball bat.
Calls for province-wide bail reforms have also come from the Association of Manitoba Municipalities (AMM) which brought a resolution to its AGM asking for increased lobbying for bail reform to both the provincial and federal governments.
There was also a disturbing incident in Manitoba that claimed the life of a 27-year-old woman that led the Mayor of Portage la Prairie to call for bail reform.
Kellie Verwey died on Jan. 15 in a three-vehicle crash on Highway 26, about three kilometres east of Portage la Prairie, and a 24-year-old charged with multiple offences related to the crash, including dangerous driving causing death and impaired driving, had an active arrest warrant for failure to comply with conditions at the time of the collision.
After the woman’s death, Knox sent an open letter to Justice Minister Matt Wiebe asking for bail reform.
“This individual should have been in custody, not behind the wheel of a stolen truck, endangering innocent lives,” Knox wrote. “This is a systemic failure, and it cost our community a vibrant, promising young woman.”
— Dave Baxter is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter who works out of the Winnipeg Sun. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.
