Youth violence targeted by Winnipeg police in Project Surge

A special investigation by Winnipeg police has identified 117 young people they say have been involved in an average of 15 police incidents each since the beginning of 2023.

Project Surge was launched in March in response to an escalation of random violence by youth, often tied to robberies.

Officers identified a group of 117 youths they say are responsible for 1,795 police incidents — including missing people reports, serious assaults, weapons offences and homicides — since 2023. Of those, 519 incidents have happened since March 2024, a police news release said Friday.

"It was a significant amount of work being created by a select few individuals," Supt. Dave Dalal told the police board on Friday.

"The results of the project are significant. Our focused attention has resulted in a 50 per cent decrease in these youth being involved in violent crime."

Going back to the beginning of 2023, there was a total of 435 arrests of those 117 youths, Dalal said.

"They're being re-arrested over and over," he said.

Since the project began, those youth have been arrested 150 times.

Dalal called Project Surge a "person-focused investigation" that involved monitoring the youth and any associates, where they were meeting up, where they were going and what they were doing.

The project included compliance checks for curfews and other conditions on youth who had been arrested and subjected to court orders.

"Surge was the result of a lot of hard work by some members who started to see the same names, same associates at different places across the city, and started to track that," Dalal said.

The data was collected by officers while they conducted their regular duties. There are no added costs to the Winnipeg Police Service for Project Surge, he said.

A dashboard where all the data could be inputted and followed was created.

30 cause 'the most harm'

Although police identified 117 youth as the biggest repeat offenders, there is a smaller nucleus within that who are responsible for the vast majority of crimes, Dalal alleged.

"The youth within [Project] Surge who are creating the most harm in the community, the most violence, the most incidents, there are 30," he said. 

The project and data gathering continues and the next critical step is to meet with government officials to find the best way to help the problem-causing youth and change their direction as much as possible, Dalal said.

"The intent is to provide these partners with accurate data to help them efficiently identify those who are in need of intensive services and supports," he said.

"It's not a problem that can't be [dealt with]. There's 30 kids that we need to focus on to make a significant impact."

Policing can only be one component of the strategy to address the problem, he said. 

"We need longer-term solutions to get these youth on an off-ramp."

Many of the youth come from high-risk lifestyles and have traumatic backgrounds that require social supports that go beyond the justice system, Dalal told the police board.

"Many of the youth in the project have been victimized multiple times, including multiple sexual assaults," he said.

Project Surge has become as much about engaging with government and social partners to work with the high-risk youth as cutting down youth violence and improving public safety, the news release said.

Those partners include the Crown's office, Child and Family Services, cultural supports and gang turnaround programming.

"Police have a role in crime and disorder, but we're not the experts in dealing with the root causes. There's other partners that need to be brought in," Dalal told the police board.

"We really do need the wraparound support plan to be our next step in this. We need the longer-term strategy so that we don't have to keep doing this."