To better enhance the local justice system, the Town of Cochrane is planning to introduce a new bylaw that explores alternative penalties for certain offences.
Director of protective services for the Town of Cochrane, Jay Judin, explained that in early January, the Alberta Government announced that grant money would be available for communities to examine new ways of diverting people from criminal matters in the justice system, and provide alternative justice opportunities for communities to explore.
“Cochrane’s municipal enforcement area applied and received funding through the Alberta Community Justice Grant for $25,000,” Judin said. “It’s designed to develop and implement a Community Standards and Public Behaviour bylaw.”
Judin further explains that this would allow peace officers at a municipal level to manage certain low-risk criminal offences that may be considered antisocial behaviour. This would decrease the need for the justice system to be involved in these offences.
“This could be disturbances, fighting in public, littering, aggressive panhandling, public urination and defecation, loitering, harassment, possession of weapons, nuisances, and other public order offences,” he said.
Through the implementation of this bylaw, Judin outlined that it would have several benefits. Firstly, this will divert offenders from the criminal justice system.
“A lot of these social disorder offences that are currently considered criminal, we would essentially decriminalize them within the community, and divert those people away from the justice system,” he said. “A bylaw like this provides the RCMP with an optional tool to utilize, other than criminal charging when they’re investigating these types of offences within the community.
“There’s also decreased demand on police and court resources, if we go bylaw versus criminal.”
Another benefit that Judin sees is that it allows Cochrane as a community to amend and adjust the bylaw, based on its ever-changing needs over the next five to 10 years.
“I think another important part of implementation of this type of bylaw is that it doesn’t criminalize social issues,” Judin said. “Really, it provides an opportunity for education, resources, and resolution. That’s the people-centred approach to justice, it engages the community, and provides resources and services to effective people.”
Although Cochrane currently has bylaws centred around behaviour, Judin said this new bylaw would be much more all-encompassing.
“We want engage peace officers in a community response model, decrease the requirement for RCMP-only resources to be utilized for lower antisocial offences, and we hope to … identify some potential alternative justice options,” Judin said. “And those would be available to utilize or implemented within the community, to be made available as an option for offender restitution.”
These alternative forms of justice would operate outside of the criminal system.
“So, instead of paying a fine or going to jail, maybe there’s an option for someone to pick up garbage in Mitford Park for a week or something along those lines,” Judin said. “So, we’re going to examine that as part of the process as well.”
For now, Judin said that the Town will hire a consultant as part of the grant process.
The consultant will examine all current social support agencies, the justice system, and current bylaws enforced by municipal officers withing Cochrane.
“Once the consultant comes back, he will essentially write a bylaw for us,” Judin said. “At that stage, when the bylaw is completed, we’ll look at going before council to have it adopted. That’s our goal in the end.
“We were made aware of the grant funding very recently, so it’ll probably be into late September before we actually identify a consultant and that work begins. We hope to have all that work completed with a bylaw ready for presentation to council in early spring of 2025.”
Overall, Judin said this is all being done to better serve the community.
“From a Cochrane context, we are looking at what’s best for our community to deal with those lower-level, what would be considered antisocial behaviour instead of criminalizing them at this point,” Judin said.
