Anti-violence policing program facing major budget cut

Province hopes to eventually axe crime-fighting TAVIS, which is unpopular in some communities

Thestar.com
Sept. 9, 2015
By Wendy Gillis

The provincial government plans to dramatically cut annual funding to the Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy (TAVIS), a specialized crime-fighting initiative created after the so-called Summer of the Gun and among the highest profile policing units in the city.

After a decade doling out $5 million a year to deploy teams of officers into high-crime neighbourhoods, the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services is cutting the TAVIS budget to $2.63 million, effective January 2016, with the ultimate aim to axe the program altogether.

The move appears to signal a shift in the province’s vision for policing, stepping away from a reactionary, hard-line approach to violent crime and focusing on prevention.

Lauren Callighen, spokesperson for MCSCS minister Yasir Naqvi, said the government is working on a new funding model that ends specific grant programs like TAVIS - which can only be used for specific purposes, whether a local need exists or not - and focuses instead on “a proactive, collaborative, and community-based model of policing.”

“We believe that the best way to prevent crime and keep our communities safe is to work with local groups and prioritize community-based crime prevention and youth engagement - by giving communities the ability to allocate funding where it’s needed most,” Callighen said in an email.

Overall, Toronto police will receive $4.7 million more from the province for policing in 2016 than in 2015, bringing the total to $47,663,212. That leaves Toronto police with the option to continue TAVIS as-is, or direct the funds elsewhere.

It’s not clear what direction Toronto police might take. They are now in the process of determining the next steps, spokesperson Mark Pugash said Wednesday.

The province’s move to cut TAVIS funding has brought praise from critics who have long decried the program, which involves an injection of officers into communities experiencing a surge in crime, a tactic known as targeted policing.

For years, TAVIS officers have also been criticized for straining relations with highly policed communities, in large part for their high rate of “carding.”

But Toronto police also credit the specialized teams with decreasing crime through intelligence gathering, arrests and seizing weapons.

“We were quite shocked,” said Toronto Police Association president Mike McCormack. “This would be a depletion of the unit ... When we need to saturate an area because we’ve had high crime, it would definitely have an impact on our ability to deploy strategic policing.”

The Toronto Police Services Board decided at its July meeting to have the board chair respond to Naqvi about the impact the funding change will have for Toronto police. Current police board chair Andy Pringle was not available for comment Wednesday.

Former chair Alok Mukherjee said in an email that the board had expressed some concern about the reduction, but wondered, given criticisms about the program, whether it was a bad thing “if it forces police services to develop other community safety measures and partner more actively with community.”

TAVIS was formed in response to a rise in gun violence in 2005, when 67 per cent of the city’s 78 homicides were gun-related, a rate double that of the previous year. Three teams, each consisting of 18 high-visibility, “rapid response” officers, were quickly credited with reducing violence in crime-ridden areas.

In 2007, a year after the TAVIS program was put in place, the province announced additional funding for a fourth TAVIS rapid response team for Toronto’s Entertainment District. By January 2008, TAVIS had seized 450 firearms, made more than 10,000 arrests and, according to then-attorney general Chris Bentley, “built positive relationships by making over 120,000 business and citizen contacts.”

But those community contacts, most the product of “carding,” also made some residents in the communities where TAVIS officers were deployed feel targeted and harassed. A 2010 Star investigation found TAVIS officers stop, question and document citizens at a higher rate than any other Toronto cop.

Former mayor John Sewell, who heads the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition, said he’s pleased the province is working toward eliminating the program.

“I do not think that it’s a positive thing that police do. I think it creates an awful lot of animosity,” he said.

“I think it was a terrible use of resources if the objective was to reduce crime,” said Howard Morton, of the Law Union of Ontario and a vocal anti-carding critic.