Edmonton downtown business association launching night patrol teams to combat crime, social issues

The Edmonton Downtown Business Association (EDBA) is launching a new initiative to help Edmontonians feel safer in the core overnight.

Edmonton Downtown Night Patrol will operate seven days a week from 12:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m.

EDBA says two teams made up of a security professional and a peer support worker will conduct patrols of downtown streets, alleys, and public spaces.

The security officers will be provided by Backwoods Security, a company owned by the Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation, while the peer support workers will come from Hiregood, a social arm of Boyle Street Community Services.

Both companies were selected after a competitive bid process, according to officials.

The teams are designed to improve public safety while also addressing social issues.

"Eighty per cent of our staff are coming from a background where they have experience out on the streets, and so they’re the real experts out there and they can relate and people respond well to them when they come up," said Jodi Phelan, general manager of Hiregood.

The mandate of the teams is to call law enforcement to deal with crime, deescalate potentially dangerous situations, and to collect, analyze, and report metrics on property damage, break-ins, vandalism, and other business-related incidents.

The city will fund the initiative as a one-year pilot project from the Downtown Vibrancy Fund.

The Edmonton Downtown Business Association held a news conference on Aug. 3, 2023 to announce the launch of Edmonton Downtown Night Patrol. (CTV News Edmonton)

"We're launching this night patrol service as a measure to improve nighttime safety by placing eyes and ears on the street, collecting data about crime and disorder, and attempting to reduce property damage and other crime," Puneeta McBryan of the EDBA said in a news release.

"Public safety and crime prevention have never been part of the EDBA's core mandate, but given the current circumstances, we felt that this was a necessary albeit exceptional initiative to design and implement."

McBryan says the EDBA has heard from numerous business owners, residents, and workers about the impacts of crime in the downtown core.

"All too often, it's our small business owners who are repeatedly targeted and facing major financial and emotional burdens from vandalism and theft," McBryan said."

The Edmonton Police Service released the following statement on the program on Thursday.

"The EPS was notified of the DBA Night Patrol at its inception, and provided guidance regarding the safety of the program’s staff," Cheryl Voordenhout wrote in an email to CTV News Edmonton. "The Night Patrol does not replace policing; they monitor and report any issues to emergency services as needed. This program has been operating since the winter of this year, and so far, there have been no issues with its deployment."

The program deployed in a prototyping phase in January, allowing for a fine tuning process.

The EDBA says the official model will launch on city streets on Thursday.

The first report from the night patrol teams will be released next month.