The United Conservative Government has released a series of twenty-four recommendations on how to battle rural crime in Alberta.

The twenty-four recommendations released from the UCP covers items such as strengthening police response capability, repeat offenders, combatting court delays, data collection, victims services, crime prevention and protection of property.

The UCP hope to create a provincially regulated police response system that would link all enforcement agencies to expedite assistance for citizens and facilitate inter-jurisdictional co-operation. 

When it comes to repeat offenders which accounts for a staggering number of criminal cases, the hope is they can develop a policy that deals specifically with repeat offenders in order to ensure they are dealt with consistently and effectively across the entire system. They would also like to encourage and increased use of electronic monitoring of high risk and repeat offenders to keep a constant eye on their location. 

Airdrie UCP MLA Angela Pitt says the ankle monitoring system has worked in other jurisdictions. 

"I think Albertans really like the idea of the ankle monitoring, it really makes sense and has been highlighted as a significant challenge for law enforcement"

Another problem that has been at the forefront of the issue includes a lack of courtrooms and judges and the UCP hopes to change that by creating temporary courts.

"Becuase of some of the problems that were created in the Jordan ruling in having timely access to the court system we have a significant backlog in the system and cases being thrown out and criminals never actually see their day in court which is dangerous and unfortunate"

Pitt says she knows the problem needs to be dealt with and believes setting up these temporary courts will let the system get through some cases and get back to a normal court level. 

The complete UCP report can be read here 

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