More than half of all Alaskan women have been sexually assaulted. Greenlanders may use the same currency as Denmark, but they sometimes experience murder rates that are 100 times higher. Canada’s Northern territories have fewer residents than a mid-sized Toronto suburb, yet they rarely go a year without a multiple homicide or a police shoot out.
Last week, for the first time ever, top cops from Greenland, Alaska and the Canadian North convened in Iqaluit to “talk shop” on keeping the peace in one of continent’s most crime-ridden regions.
“When you start seeing the same things over and over again, you have to look at different approaches,” said Superintendent Steve McVarnock, commanding officer for the Nunavut RCMP.
Together, the five police commanders in the room are in charge of policing an area the size of the continental United States, and they do it with fewer officers than a single New York City borough. In all three countries, police faced the combined challenges of vast distances, near-constant winter and indigenous populations that — within living memory — have made the rocky transition from hunter-gatherer lifestyles to settled communities. Above all, said the commanders, their jurisdictions are utterly ravaged by alcohol abuse.
“Alcohol was definitely the common denominator,” said Supt. McVarnock.
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