KAWARTHA LAKES-The Kawartha Lakes Police Service has applied for the new Bail Compliance Dashboard when it is released by the province as crime rates continue to trend higher in our community.
Chief Mark Mitchell told the police services board on Thursday that the dashboard is currently being piloted by two police services in Ontario and should roll out across the province in the next year.
“It will give us visibility on everybody who is on any type of judicial release in our community,” Mitchell explained. “Whether the charges originate here or not we will be able to log compliance checks directly into that so it will be a much better system of monitoring than we have now and that hopefully will roll out across the province in the next 12 months.”
Mitchell said the crime stats for September have continued an upward trend with 20% of charges being repeat offenders.
“Not surprisingly our property-related offences particularly theft numbers are also reflective of that trend. I have asked for a little bit of a further drill down on that but I can tell you that probably around 20% of those charges are what we would call administration of justice  type offences that we have spoken about before and the vast majority of those would be repeat offenders,” said Mitchell.
In April the province announced it would spend $112 million on bail compliance programs, which will include the dashboard and teams of police officers dedicated to pursuing people who aren’t following their bail conditions.
$48 million will be available over three years to the OPP repeat offenders and parole enforcement squad, which will provide the OPP with about 50 additional people for those units, said Solicitor General Michael Kerzner at the time. That $48 million will create a dedicated bail compliance unit within the squad, according to a news release.
$24 million in grants will also be available for police services across the province to help them beef up or create parole enforcement units according to Kerzner.
Ford said the spending will improve public safety. “These investments will help ensure that the most high-risk offenders remain in jail, and those accused of crimes and out on bail follow the rules,” he said. “And we’re investing in new technology to better monitor people out on bail,”
The new bail compliance dashboard will “allow police services to monitor high-risk offenders with the most accurate data possible.” said the province.
Ontario experienced a 57 per cent increase in serious violence and weapons cases before the courts between 2018 and 2021. (Ontario Court of Justice)Â Toronto Police Service report that over the last two years in the city of Toronto, 17 per cent of accused charged with shooting-related homicides were already out on firearms bail at the time of the alleged fatal shooting.
