[jar_e]

FWIW, majority of auto theft offenders in Calgary are adults, not doing it for joy rides, and are simply flipping the vehicles for cash/their next hit of whatever substance they're addicted to.

CPS did have the High Enforcement Auto Theft Team (HEATT) that was responsible for dropping auto thefts by approximately 50%. However, that team has been disbanded and such enforcement and mandate is pushed to other teams.

http://calgaryherald.com/news/crime/...elligence-unit

Police say budgetary restrictions and pressing needs in other areas have prompted them to dedicate the six constables and one sergeant from the team to the intel gathering arm of the force. HEATT, which was created in 2003 to target prolific car thieves, is being disbanded over the coming months.

The decision to deploy members from that auto theft team came as the police noted a steady decline in vehicle thefts over the years.
Thanks to the team’s efforts, along with new technology in the auto industry making it more difficult to steal a vehicle without a key, incidents of vehicle thefts started to drop.
According to figures provided by police, the service recorded 6,484 incidents of vehicle theft, which gradually went down to 3,441 by last year.

Both he and Parhar said many of today’s vehicle thefts are crimes of opportunity, cars left running in front of convenience stores and homes, adding educating the public is a big part in combating this crime.
Parhar said the auto theft unit will continue to investigate stolen car cases, monitor auto theft trends, and maintain initiatives such as the bait car program.

Also, Winnipeg's problem was largely based around joyriding/youth which is entirely different compared to the norm across the country.

http://www.canada.com/story_print.ht...82bda&sponsor=

Researchers attributed Winnipeg's high rate to the popularity of joyriding among the city's youths.


Teens between 15 and 18 years old committed half of Winnipeg's solved auto thefts, compared to the rest of the country, where less than a third of cases involve that age group.

In Calgary, police recover 90 per cent of stolen autos, leading investigators to conclude the motive behind most cases is "theft for transport": vehicles taken by criminals for use in other crimes, such as burglaries and robberies.

Further to all this, there has been legislation changed at a federal level under Bill S9 in 2011 where if you're convicted of theft of auto three times, its automatically six months in jail, minimum. Also, the "theft of auto" charge was new, discerning between a simple theft under/over and theft of auto.

http://www.calgarysun.com/2011/05/11...LOCK_QuickRead

Another point mentioning is a large portion of these thefts of vehicles are preventable by not leaving keys in the vehicle/locking your vehicle/never leave your vehicle running unattended.

There's a lot of dynamics with these things but considering the WATSS program is primarily based on teens/youth and joy riding, I feel it may be fitting a square peg in a round hole.