RCMP in Thompson have managed to reduce crime by as much as half thanks to a new approach to dealing with chronic offenders.

Inspector Will Tewnion said he's following the lead of a police chief in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan who said "You can't arrest your way out of the problem."

RCMP are involved in a new program called Project Northern Doorway. It also involves the City of Thompson, the Canadian Mental Health Association, Manitoba Housing, the Thompson Homeless Shelter, Addictions Foundation of Manitoba and the Northern Health Region.

"It's not just you know, when you see somebody who's intoxicated and falling over on the street rather than ignoring them, kind of recognize that there's something that needs to be done here to help and personally I think that that's a huge positive," Tewnion said.

Since 2011, the number of disturbing the peace calls has dropped from 3,723 to 1,952 in 2014.

"If there's fights or there's swearing, yelling downtown it's generally because somebody's drunk and disorderly which is disturbing the peace. And if we've managed to reduce those calls by half, then that means we collectively as a community have started to address the root cause of the problems," Tewnion said.

Many of the repeat offenders are taken to a 16-bed transitional housing centre where they receive counselling and other supports.

Tewnion said it appears to be having an impact on people's lives as well. He recalled one man who had been picked up 50 times by police before the program began.

"Fifty — that's 5-0 — negative interactions with this individual, and he was chosen to take part in the project and I'm happy to say in 2014, we had one interaction with him and that was just because he was a complainant on a file," Tewnion said.

Other types of crime have dropped as well:

Assaults went from 999 in 2010 to 742 in 2014.

Sexual assaults dropped from 67 to 39.

Break and enters are down from 141 to 76.

Tewnion said as a result of less crime, more people seem to feel more safe coming to Thompson's downtown.

The graph below, provided by Thompson RCMP, shows the reduction of crime in Thompson over the last few years.