With Canadians arrested for intoxication dying in cells, some cities find alternatives to jail
CBC
When the Kenora Makwa Patrol comes across someone who is intoxicated, their first approach is not to call police, but to make sure the person is OK and has a safe place to sleep for the night.
"We won't take them to the jail because … that's someplace nobody really wants to go," said Marshall Hardy, the manager of the street outreach group in the northwestern Ontario city of Kenora.
"The best place would be for them to be at home," he said. "But you know, a lot of these people that we deal with don't have homes."
Instead, the patrol group works with Ontario Provincial Police to get people to the local detox centre, a hospital or a shelter.
The end result is fewer intoxicated people ending up in Kenora jails cells for the night, said Jeffrey Duggan, detachment commander and inspector for the Kenora OPP.
"Their job is to proactively patrol the city of Kenora in those spots where people do hang out or drink … and to check on them," Duggan said of Kenora Makwa.
A CBC News investigation found that 61 Canadians have died in police custody after being arrested related to intoxication since 2010.
Most of those people were detained in rural police detachments, often in communities where there are no detox or sobering centres.
Kenora now has the Morningstar detoxification centre, thanks to co-operation between police, local government and health providers.
"Everybody that's nonviolent and is not charged criminally goes to the detox centre," said Duggan.
"If they can walk, if they can communicate, we can call [Makwa Patrol]," who can take them to the centre, he said.
Intoxicated people can be dropped off at any time at the centre, which has blankets, beds for those who need to stay overnight and staff trained to deal with people who have addictions.
People are also monitored during their stay.
Duggan said in the past, jail was the only option for dealing with intoxicated people in Kenora. That changed after the 2016 death of 16-year-old Delaine Copenace, who was missing for over a month before her body was discovered in Lake of the Woods in Kenora.
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