(ADAM PROSKIW / iNFOnews.ca)

The province is reviving an enforcement strategy meant to target repeat offenders in B.C. a decade after it was dropped.

In 2012, a prolific offender management pilot program completed a four-year run in six B.C. cities, including Kamloops. It brought resources from police, Crown and corrections, along with health and social services together in order to reduce recidivism rates.

Public safety minister Mike Farnworth said the province will bring the program back following recommendations from a repeat offenders study. It was regarded as a success at the time for reducing both crime rates and recidivism rates.

It's one of three initiatives the province is acting on immediately following the months-long prolific offenders study released yesterday, Sept. 21.

When the study was announced, then-Attorney General David Eby promised "creative solutions" to deal with repeat offenders in the province, who he said are often responsible for a disproportionate amount of crimes in B.C. cities.

Former Vancouver Transit Police chief Doug Lepard and criminologist Dr. Amanda Butler took on the study in May, Eby said at the time.

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Despite his promise of "creative solutions," the study's recommendations are being criticized as nothing new.

“There isn’t much in this report that our communities and law enforcement agencies weren’t already fully aware of, and nothing that citizens can rely on for immediate relief,” B.C. Liberal MLA and official opposition critic for public safety Mike Morris said in a news release.

"This provides no reassurance that they take this issue seriously or that they take responsibility for their half a decade of failures on this file," Morris said.

The study includes 28 recommendations for the provincial government, most of which are centred around mental health care for offenders.

It stops short of mandating treatment for chronic offenders, whose behaviour is exacerbated by mental health issues or toxic drug use.

However, it does recommend exploring "therapeutic bail" conditions and pleas under not criminally responsible due to mental disorder. The defense in criminal court can lead accused offenders to a forensic psychiatric hospital, which will keep them in custody until they're deemed not a risk to themselves or the public.

READ MORE: Mental health support for B.C. inmates 'woefully inadequate': prolific offenders study

Therapeutic bail is similar to conditions placed on offenders in Kamloops, where they aren't held in custody, but they are to remain at the addictions treatment facility VisionQuest near Logan Lake.

Kamloops RCMP is relaunching its own prolific offenders management team later this month, but it's not clear whether that's related to provincial efforts.

The Crime Reduction Unit is a squad aimed at targeting repeat offenders, often while released on bail conditions.

Insp. Jeff Pelley of the Kamloops detachment has said the unit hasn't been staffed in more than a year, but it will coordinate with other social and health supports for offenders. He said a "small number of criminals" are responsible for the rise in property crime in Kamloops, but added it can be difficult to keep them in custody once a charge comes through.

The notion of a "small number" of offenders responsible for a disproportionate amount of property crimes is one repeated in cities across the province.

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In Kelowna, 15 people had more than 1,000 dealings with police in 2021. In 13 B.C. cities, 200 people accounted for 11,000 police files.

A 2021 University of the Fraser Valley study examined prolific offender enforcement at police detachments across the province from 2007 to 2017.

It found that RCMP across B.C. had various different models for prolific offender management. While the provincewide effort was dropped in 2012, some detachments kept some version of the program going.

That study found E Division, B.C.'s RCMP headquarters, recognized that prolific offender management successfully reduced crime, but there was "no one unified approach" to those efforts across the 23 detachments it studied.

The authors of that study did not suggest there should be a single approach for all detachments, but it did highlight that officers at various detachments would often find themselves veering off from prolific offender management goals or would be reassigned to other duties.

Farnworth told reporters at Wednesday's press conference the government clearly has "work to do" to meet the study's recommendations.

The report "highlights the need" to invest in social and health care supports the B.C. NDP have been "rebuilding after a decade-and-a-half of cuts," Attorney General Murray Rankin said.

After more than five years in government, it's been long enough for the NDP government to take action on the "catch-and-release approach," B.C. Liberal leader Kevin Falcon said in a media release. The report largely focuses on the lack of mental health services for people who are in the B.C. justice system or on their way back into society.

“Where is the compassion for people who are experiencing crime or feeling unsafe in their communities? At no point does this report pay any attention to the devastating impact this increase in violent crime is having on innocent victims,” Falcon said in the release.

“There are some elements in this report that are a small step in the right direction and that we’ve been calling for years, but after more than five years of David Eby and the NDP’s catch-and-release approach, there is no reason to believe that they are capable of taking the action needed to stop it.”

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