As youth arrests triple in Saanich, support for resuming controversial police liaison program grows

In Saanich, B.C., the youth arrest rate in the first four months of this academic year is more than triple last year’s rate. In the neighbouring city of Victoria, police have reported an uptick in youth involvement in organized crime.Police chiefs, local politicians and some parents in the area say one way of reversing this trend would be for the Greater Victoria School District, which serves both communities, to resume an initiative it cancelled at the end of the past school year: its police liaison program, under which officers were a regular presence in schools.