14,000 Arrests! How Many Convictions and How Many Incarcerated?

Toughest 'hoods get $10M

Province likes anti-crime strategy

By TAMARA CHERRY, SUN MEDIA

Police Chief Bill Blair's brainchild got a $10-million boost yesterday.

The Toronto Anti-Violence Prevention Strategy (TAVIS), which has been imitated around the province and studied around the world, will be granted the provincial dollars over a two-year period. When that sum is included, the Ontario government will have pumped $27 million into TAVIS since its inception.

The program dates back to January 2006, when the province announced funding for CCTV cameras to be installed in high-risk areas of Toronto and for three rapid response teams of officers to be deployed around the city.

It has been expanded to include four rapid response teams, made up of 18 officers each, who are mobilized year-round to areas "where violence has occurred or is likely to occur," Blair said during an announcement at 12 Division yesterday.

In addition, 75 officers are deployed for five-week summer stints in neighbourhoods thought to be most in need.

In June, those officers began walking and biking the beats in 31 Division's Jane-Finch neighbourhood and 12 Division's Keele St.-Eglinton Ave. area in an effort to better relations between officers and area residents.

Nearly half of Toronto's homicides so far this year have occurred in those divisions -- nine in 12 Division and three in 31 Division.

Over the last few years, funding has been provided so police forces in other parts of the province could put similar units on the street.

According to numbers released yesterday, the TAVIS program has generated more than 14,000 arrests and resulted in the seizure of early 600 guns as of May.

Ontario Community Safety Minister Rick Bartolucci said the TAVIS model "is now being studied by police services not only across Canada, but internationally, because of its quick deployment and because of its intensity in action and in communication."

Blair stressed the importance of having police officers make connections with residents.

"It's a signal ... that this is not a good place to deal drugs, not a good place to carry a gun, not a good place to be violent and not a good place to hurt anybody," he said.

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