B.C. spending $25M to support repeat violent offender management teams
The B.C. government says it's spending $25 million over the next three years to support coordination between police, prosecutors and probation officers dealing with repeat violent offenders.
The funding will be used to hire a range of workers, from prosecutors to probation officers to correctional supervisors.
Specifically, the funding will be used to hire 21 Crown counsel and 21 other B.C. Prosecution Service staff, nine correctional supervisors, nine probation officers focused on enhanced release planning for violent offenders, and 12 more probation officers based outside of correctional centres to support other teams.
The funding will also be used to hire four full-time B.C. Corrections workers to develop, co-ordinate and evaluate what the province is calling its Repeat Violent Offending Intervention Initiative.
"We are pulling out all the stops to make sure British Columbians feel safe," said B.C. Public Safety Minister and Solicitor General Mike Farnworth in a release Tuesday.
"With the Repeat Violent Offending Intervention Initiative, government agencies will have the resources they need to pool their expertise and work collaboratively to protect communities and help people break the cycle of offending," he said.
The province says hiring for these roles is already underway, and the new imitative is expected to launch across B.C. in April.
Once up and running, the teams will identify cases where intervention or investigation is recommended, and will help provide documentation to prosecutors to make "informed decisions about charge assessments and prosecutions."
The province's announcement comes roughly a week after provincial ministers met in Ottawa to discuss what bail reform may look like across the country.
B.C. Attorney General Niki Sharma says the province is treading carefully to ensure the over-incarceration of Indigenous people and other racialized groups is not made worse by proposed federal changes to the bail system.
Sharma says the proposed changes will ensure repeat offenders are held in custody before their trial unless there is a "good reason" for their release.
But, she says the province needs to be "very watchful" to ensure bail reform doesn't step on the toes of other initiatives, like the BC First Nations Justice Strategy that aims to reduce the number of Indigenous people involved in the criminal justice system.
Sharma says federal Justice Minister David Lametti has agreed to "move quickly" on the reform, and that it could happen as early as this spring.
With files from the Canadian Press.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Poilievre kicked out of Commons after calling Prime Minister Justin Trudeau 'wacko'
Testy exchanges between the prime minister and his chief opponent ended with the Opposition leader and one of his MPs being ejected from the House of Commons on Tuesday -- and the rest of Conservative caucus walking out of the chamber in protest.
Baby, grandparents among 4 people killed in wrong-way police chase on Ontario's Hwy. 401
A police chase which started with a liquor store robbery in Bowmanville Monday night ended in tragedy some 20 minutes later when a suspect fleeing police entered Highway 401 in the wrong direction and caused a pileup which killed an infant and the child's grandparents, as well as the suspect, investigators say.
Freeland leaves capital gains tax change out of coming budget implementation bill, here's why
Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland will be tabling yet another omnibus bill to pass a sweeping range of measures promised in her April 16 federal budget, though left out of the legislation will be the government's proposed capital gains tax change.
Man dies after suffering cardiac arrest while waiting in ER, widow wants investigation
When an ambulance took David Lippert to the hospital in March of 2023, the 68-year-old Kitchener, Ont., executive was hoping to find out why he was feeling weak and unable to walk. Some 24 hours later, he was found unresponsive in the ER.
Sword-wielding man attacks passersby in London, killing a 14-year-old boy and injuring 4 others
A man wielding a sword attacked members of the public and police officers in a northeast London suburb Tuesday, killing a 14-year-old boy and injuring four other people, British authorities said.
WATCH Arnold Schwarzenegger spotted filming in Elora, Ont.
The name of the project has not been officially released although it’s widely believed to be the Netflix series FUBAR.
Eviction for landlord's use was legitimate, despite owners' partial move, B.C. court rules
A B.C. judge has upheld the eviction of a family from their North Vancouver townhouse, finding that the landlords did not take an unreasonable amount of time to move into the home after the tenants vacated it.
What's causing the catastrophic rainfall in Kenya?
The torrential rains and deadly floods that have hit Kenya since March have been some of the worst in the country in recent years. Here's how factors combined to create the deadly deluge.
BREAKING Hosting Vancouver's FIFA World Cup games could cost half a billion dollars
Hosting seven games in Vancouver during the 2026 FIFA World Cup could cost more than half a billion dollars, according to an updated estimate provided Tuesday.