Harvard University to take a shot at reducing Winnipeg police calls for service

Mayor Brian Bowman hopes the intellectual firepower of one of the most prestigious universities in the world can help reduce the number of calls for service responded to byWinnipeg police.

The City of Winnipeg and Bowman were selected earlier in 2019to participate in the year-long Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative, a professional development program for municipal leaders around the world.

Bowman then pitched a specificproject thatallowsthe city of Winnipegfurther access to Harvard'sfaculty, students and other resources atits Kennedy School and business programs.

The effort to reducecalls for service to the Winnipeg Police Service through improvedcollaborationwas acceptedby the program a month ago.

Winnipeg police received more than 600,000 calls for service in 2018, andbetween one-half andtwo-thirds of the calls to which officers were dispatched were in response to issues that were not criminal, the city says.

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The project with Harvard will gather key stakeholders, analyze data and try to find ways to respond better to the calls and ease the strain on police resources.

Bowman said as many 30 different groups and agencies, includingthe Winnipeg police and fire services, the unionrepresenting officers, health and mental health care providers and other stakeholderswill be invited by Harvard to participate.

"If we can reduce the demands on non-core policing dispatched calls, we are all going to benefit as a community, so the question becomes, how do you do that? And that's where Harvard's resources are being tapped," Bowman said Thursday.

The university and Bloomberg Philanthropies underwrite most of the cost of the work and the city will provide"nominal resources" to support the effort, he said.

The project is not dedicated to finding budget savings nor dictating police operations, Bowman said.