Good afternoon. I'm honoured to be here today representing the Winnipeg Police Service, and I'm very pleased to speak with you on such an important issue.
Not unlike other urban centres in Canada, Winnipeg struggles with crimes of exploitation, procuring, luring, prostitution, and related criminal behaviour. Exploitation is not limited to cities or any one segment of our population. It's truly a community issue for all Canadians. Many of these crimes have their genesis in, or a connection to, human trafficking. I applaud the government for bringing into law specific sections of the Criminal Code to address these terrible events and give police real ability and methods to improve the lives of victims and stabilize those at risk. Legislation like this brings meaningful change to our communities and helps create a culture of safety.
The specific amendments in Bill C-452 including presumption of evidence for exploited persons, specific reference to a domestic context when speaking about trafficking, forfeiture provisions, and consecutive sentences are tangible items that both police and prosecutors have needed. Combatting exploitation requires a broad range of commitments on many fronts, and all the practices police and our partners employ come together when the laws are comprehensive.
Not unlike a puzzle, when pieces are put together you find strength and you can see the entire picture. To that end, I want to share with you some of our strategies and programs and methods as they relate directly to the current legislation and the amendments contained within Bill C-452.
The initiatives, strategies, and work practices of the Winnipeg Police Service have developed over a considerable time, always with a view to maximizing our resources, skill, knowledge, and abilities to address victim, community, or offender processes. For example, since 1990, officers of our sex crime unit have been part of a board that includes medical staff, a community outreach program called Klinic, victim service workers, and the RCMP. The goal of this group is to ensure that the practices and processes that are in place for sexual assault examination, interviews, and evidence gathering serve the interests of justice and the wellness, care, and dignity of victims.
Many victims these teams deal with are from exploited populations and we open doors for programming and longer-term care, and help make life changes.
Inside our service, we conduct yearly in-depth training on exploitation, sexual assault victim protocols, cycles of violence, and how to offer assistance. This training is mandatory for recruits and forms part of specialist training for all detectives.
In 2012 the child abuse unit partnered and helped found the Winnipeg Children's Advocacy Centre. This corporation is a child victims' centre governed by a board that includes police, justice, health, social service agencies, and victim services. The mission of this stand-alone centre is to facilitate multi-system collaboration and foster best practices in child exploitation investigations. Also, the centre ensures that victims receive sensitive and immediate support in a setting that puts their needs first. This set-up reduces system-induced stress faced by children who are victims of sexual or serious physical abuse.
The Winnipeg Police Service is also an active participant and contributor to the violent crime linkage system. More than two years ago, we changed our workflow internally and have a nearly 100% compliance rating for submissions and analysis. This has benefited local investigations and identified leads on cases that had run cold. These new leads have increased tenfold because of our changes in workflow and communication.
Since 2005, our integrated high-risk offender unit has been operating in partnership with the RCMP corrections and community groups. This unit aggressively monitors offenders for conditional order breaches and conducts surveillance operations on persons designated as a high risk to reoffend. They also facilitate Criminal Code section 810 order applications and public information notices.
Our missing persons unit was restructured in 2009. Currently, the unit manages approximately 6,600 missing person cases a year, many of which are chronic runaway children who need our help. We have developed a high-risk victim protocol strategy that aims to prevent the exploitation of youth and bring about stabilization in their lives. We do this by pairing a police officer and social worker together, shoulder to shoulder, to plan, manage, evaluate risk, and help each child as an individual. This program works. It brings a stable lifestyle to many and provides a real mechanism for police to identify those who prey on children in our malls, parks, and streets.
Finding missing kids is only the first part. We now probe further in these cases, and if we can bring charges of luring and of abduction of a child under 14 within the parameters of harbouring or concealing their whereabouts, we do so. Our vice unit is also involved in a number of tactics that focus on exploitation, prevention, and communication.
Deter and identify sex-trade consumer reports, or DISC reports, have formed part of our records management system since 2002. These reports often begin with front-line police officers conducting traffic stops. The information is automatically forwarded to the vice unit for analysis, and information such as behaviour, risk to the community, suspicious practices, or comments are noted and compared with ongoing cases.
Where children are potentially at risk, this information is shared with children's services, which have the ability under the provincial legislation to take proactive steps against the potential or actual offenders. The vice unit monitors known sex-trade websites and Internet advertisements daily. Undercover operations are conducted based on this information or these ads, and particular attention is given to exploitation, human trafficking, and child prostitution-styled ads. This has occurred for approximately five years.
The vice unit has regularly developed relationships with the Salvation Army; New Directions for Children, Youth, Adults & Families; Rossbrook House; Sage House; and the Native Women's Transition Centre Inc. These relationships have identified people who prey on the vulnerable for the purpose of forced entry into the sex trade. Vice investigations, human trafficking, cycles of exploitation and drug dependency, and techniques for helping sex trade workers are taught at recruit training and senior investigator levels.
In 2011, the Winnipeg Police Service assisted in the redevelopment of the curriculum for the province's core competency training course for understanding and working with sexually exploited youth. This exploitation training program is the only formal program in North America and is attended by social service workers, police, foster parents, health professionals, teachers, and corrections officers.
We also conduct programs to help both victims and offenders. Our prostitution offender program for johns began in 2002, and continues today. Approximately 50 to 70 offenders participate in this program each year. Conversely, our prostitution diversion program for sex-trade workers began in 2003, and also continues. Approximately 35 to 50 women complete multi-day, overnight programming each year. Police officers participate in all aspects of the program with social service workers, justice partners, and community specialists. Relationship building, trust, education, and change are our focus.
Our public campaign that is focused on exploitation, a sex trade reality check, has used public ads to raise awareness and to date has distributed more than 9,000 posters.
Another quarterly event is Project Return. This protocol includes social workers, both government and non-government, working with police during undercover police operations to assist with juvenile prostitution, treatment plans, and placement in safe, nurturing environments.
We have sponsored human trafficking training events in Winnipeg for police, crowns, and our partners to raise awareness and action. The Winnipeg Police Service has partnered on this subject with the University of Winnipeg and the University of Saskatchewan, by assisting doctoral students studying the dynamics of human trafficking and exploitation.
All of our practices have been looked at holistically in great detail over the last two years, and we recently realigned our missing persons unit and vice units within one division. All the units I spoke about previously are now contained in that division. This new division I speak of has been renamed the Specialized Investigations Division. This speaks to our commitment to victim-centred services, along with robust investigations that will bring those responsible for exploitation to account under the law.
In fact, Winnipeg police investigators just last year had a case where the specific human trafficking charges fell apart due to a number of factors, most of which were out of our control. Thankfully, investigators were able to regroup, continue the investigation on this gang associate, and bring about charges that resulted in a conviction and appropriate penitentiary term. This case had a procuring element, and it would have been both prudent and advantageous to continue the investigation from a forfeiture perspective.
Bill C-452 will provide opportunities and further accountability for those who offend. I can say with confidence that police are well versed in forfeiture investigation and presumption of evidence processes due to similar parallels and experiences in proceeds of crime law. The amendments in Bill C-452 will enhance our ability to remove the profit from exploitation crime. I know from my own experience as an organized crime investigator, that forfeiture and consecutive sentences work. Deterrence and breaking the cycle of profitability can change behaviour and prevent others from entering that offending cycle of behaviour, greed, and disrespect for others.
I do not have any direct recommendations today, but I do wish to express my hope that the resolve of legislators will not wane when it comes to human trafficking, exploitation, and improving the lives of all people within our borders.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much.
