The provincial government is rolling out a new entity aimed to reduce crime in rural areas. The Protection and Response Team, or PRT, is one of a number of recommendations brought forward by the Caucus Committee on Crime on how to reduce crime in rural Saskatchewan.

The PRT consists of 258 armed officers who will have full arrest and detention powers. It will be comprised of 120 RCMP and municipal police service officers. Of those, 60 officers are currently part of the Combined Traffic Services initiative, 30 will be new positions and 30 will be re-purposed police positions funded by the Ministry of Justice. The number is rounded out by 40 commercial vehicle officers from the Ministry of Highways who will receive expanded powers and 98 conservation officers from the Ministry of Environment.

The PRT will have a goal to improve police response times to emergency calls for services, including property crimes in progress, enhance police visibility in rural Saskatchewan increase the enforcement of drug trafficking laws on provincial highways and work to reduce the number of serious vehicle collisions.

The government is investing $5.9 million for the recommendations from the report, which includes the creation of the PRT. SGI is providing $4.9 million for the extra officers, while the additional $1 million will be from the Ministry of Justice.

Recommendations from the committee, aside from the creation of the PRT, include reviewing legislation to allow municipalities to jointly administer policing programs, provide more funding for on-reserve programming and services, such as hubs, and a number of other measures.

The goal is to have the PRT in operation and fully staffed before the end of the province's fiscal year in the spring of 2018.