Chief says social disorder calls continue to rise

The number of social disorder calls the North Bay Police receive, continues to mount. 

Social disorder calls for service are those that North Bay Police Chief Scott Tod says generally do not involve a crime but a complainant makes a call that may require a police presence. 

"It could be because of a suspicious person, it could be because a crime could be about to occur or it could be because that person is in fear for their safety," explains Tod.  

"That would be a public disorder call. It could be someone urinating in public and although that is unpleasant it is not necessarily a crime, yet we have officers attending and that is just one example of it."

Tod says those call numbers continue to rise. 

"In November, we had 36.9 per cent of our calls which were related to social disorder," he said after December's Police Board meeting before the Christmas holidays. 

"Concerning to me is the fact that usually it is around 27 per cent but last month it was much higher than that so we have to look into that and find out, is this a result of homelessness?  Is it a result of mental health and addiction and the availability of safe spaces for people to go to? We will look at that. It is not just necessarily downtown but it is across the city of North Bay."

Tod says those calls come in from both the 911 service and the police main phone line.  

"A lot of them come in as a request to speak to an officer, but people tell us they would like to see an officer, and describe a situation that may cause fear among them to get a feeling that something is being done," he said. 

Tod is concerned about it.

"I think we can look into it and determine if there is additional work with our other partners in North Bay, that our social service agencies we work with," he said.

"Is there better health care available for them, what are the opportunities that we can do to help reduce those social disorder calls?"