2023 Draft Budget Highlights Book<\/a>, the Peterborough Police Service had a budget of $29.1 million. With the proposed increase of 11.7 per cent, the 2024 budget would be $32.5 million.<\/p>\nThen, on Oct. 5, Betts announced the Peterborough Police Service (PPS) is adopting a new strategy in dealing with illicit drug use in public spaces. This position would mean more time, resources, and officers, would be dedicated to controlling drug use, in an effort to promote feelings of public safety.<\/p>\n
Trent Radio interviewed Chief Betts to discuss these recent developments in policing in Peterborough.<\/p>\n
Betts admits that policing is not the perfect solution to every social issue. He recognizes that other types of organizations could be better equipped to support social issues like mental health, addiction, or homelessness. But, until those services are in place in Peterborough, it is going to be the responsibility of PPS.<\/p>\n
\u201cUntil there is something else in place to take over things that do not require a police response, we\u2019re it,\u201d says Betts.<\/p>\n
Betts spoke about his goals for addressing mental health crises in Peterborough, but feels there needs to be an increase in budget to get there.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would like to shift to a much more proactive model of policing. But right now, we are stuck with reactive,\u201d says Betts.<\/p>\n
Betts then answers questions about the \u201cno-tolerance\u201d strategy in policing illicit drug use in Peterborough public spaces.<\/p>\n
Betts concludes the interview by describing what would happen if his ideal budget request was accepted:<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would allow us be more proactive, to help prevent crime. Crime is one of the five core responsibilities of policing, crime prevention. And with more resources we can do more things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Listen to the story below:<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The City of Peterborough is drafting and finalizing their budget for the 2024 year and a police budget increase is being considered. With the draft scheduled to be presented in early November, and in preparation for this, Peterborough Police Service\u2019s Chief Stuart Betts held a Town Hall meeting on Sept. 18 to present, discuss, and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":157,"featured_media":186712,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57,3265,225],"tags":[31424,10905,31146,31425,31145,2385,31147,31148],"radio":[25166],"origine":[267,269,25405],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186706"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/157"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186706"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":186808,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186706\/revisions\/186808"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186706"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=186706"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=186706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}