The campaign has barely begun and already each party is trying to put a fresh spin on Winnipeg's most intractable issue: Crime.

Moments the writ was dropped, the Liberals and Tories announced the first of what will be a week's worth of crime-related promises, focused largely on gangs.

By late afternoon the NDP joined the fray, hinting at its own brand of get-tough measures at a campaign stop in Brandon.

This is now Winnipeg's third election in a year, the third time we've watched politicians boil crime solutions down to two things: More cops and some floor hockey.

The Tories, who earned the most momentum in the 2007 campaign from their crime week, were quick out of the gate with a pledge of 15 new police officers, dedicated to cracking down on illegal guns. They also promised a couple of community recreation funds to improve neighbourhood sports programs and keep kids out of gangs.

The NDP also promised more officers, with more details to come.

The Liberals leapfrogged right to the floor hockey and promised $4.6 million to boost inner-city recreation.

Trouble is, the "midnight basketball" solution to youth crime and gangs has not necessarily proven that effective. Researchers say the kids who participate in recreation programs are often the same kids who already have some natural defences against gang life. The "roots causes of crime" -- a catchphrase you'll hear a lot in the next four weeks -- go much deeper, and don't make for quick sound bites or slogans.

"Whatever else gangs are, they are collective solutions to shared problems," said University of Ottawa criminologist Ross Hastings, who organized a gang crime conference several years ago. "Kids face challenges they can't solve any other way."

That includes all the trappings of poverty -- abusive or absentee parents, moving from one crappy, overcrowded apartment to another, illiteracy and school failure, hunger and victimization on the streets from which only a gang can protect them.

Winnipeg's crime rate is on the decline, mirroring continent-wide trends. The city still leads the pack when it comes to violent crime, much of it gang-related, but crime statistics and the plethora of daily police press releases show clearly that the worst of it happens in the inner city, often to people who know the perpetrator.

Still, the issue plays big as a vote-getter in suburban ridings key to forming government. There, the perception of crime looms larger than the reality.

That perception was bolstered this summer by a spate of fire-bombings and shootings in middle-class neighbourhoods like Lord Roberts and St. Vital, part of a gang turf war. There was also a string of garage arsons in affluent areas like River Heights.

Winnipeg already has the most police officers per capita of almost any jurisdiction in Canada. The province's jails are overflowing and the government is building new ones. Even the provincial NDP, at odds with its federal cousins, routinely demands Ottawa toughen the Criminal Code and the young offenders act.

Few politicians in Manitoba are willing to break the hang-'em-high mould, even though some of the United States' most right-leaning politicians, including Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich and former Homeland Security undersecretary Asa Hutchinson, have disavowed the American experiment with mandatory minimum prison sentences and other tough-on-crime measures.

Real solutions to the city's crime problem may be more nuanced.

Hastings said it's not necessarily more police, but using officers more wisely to target high-crime areas and build real trust with residents too intimidated to come forward with street-level information.

It's swift and certain punishment, not necessarily severe prison sentences, that act as a deterrent, he said. That means better policing and more Crown attorneys, but it also means rethinking sentences that focus on treatment and training while also reducing the caseloads of parole officers so they can really monitor chronic offenders in the community.

It's also creating affordable housing, using child welfare services to help people be better parents and other soft stuff that's a hard sell at election time.

"People leave gangs when they have hope of something better," like a real job or a chance to succeed in school, said Hastings. "Most kids in gangs simply don't believe that's possible."

maryagnes.welch@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition September 7, 2011 A4