518 replies to this topic

[Rorschach]

I still say the issue is not the demographics and geography of crimes. This issue is economic. There is no reason to have eleven bureaucracies each with their own hierarchy of "leaders" to be paid to "make decisions" as their primary job. There is too much duplication of "leadership" and that costs the taxpayers too much. It's wasteful and inefficient.

The police resources throughout the region need to be consolidated and optimized for maximum practical and economic efficiency. That is the issue: waste and inefficiency. With the tax base eroding and costs increasing, police amalgamation is absolutely required.

The reason it has not happened is a lack of leadership and a surplus of titular leaders. No one is willing to decide to solve the problem. No problem is ever solved until the boss decides to solve it. There is no boss and there are too many bosses who lose their authority if amalgamation occurs. It's as simple as that.

The solution will be forced upon the cities from outside because of the nature of the problem. Such a forced solution will not be as good as a solution the cities themselves could arrange if someone had the courage to truly lead -- and I don't see that happening.

The solution is leadership and a single decision away. It's pathetic that it won't happen. The individual departments will have to be dragged kicking and screaming. I expect more of our government.

[VicHockeyFan]

Business owners want Esquimalt police patrols
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Font: * * * * Rob Shaw, with a file from Richard Watt, Times Colonist
Published: Friday, November 24, 2006
There aren't enough police officers patrolling Esquimalt to respond to the needs of the community, a group of business owners told the municipality's mayor yesterday.

Members of the business community told Mayor Chris Clement in a meeting they felt they had lost touch with their police. And a general disorder had crept in with drug addicts and prostitutes now openly conducting affairs.

Clement said he will take their concerns, many of which centred on desire to see officers walking the beat again, to Police Chief Paul Battershill and Victoria Mayor Alan Lowe.

At issue, according to the business owners, is whether Esquimalt is better served with the Victoria Police Department than it was when it had its own force.

The provincial government forcibly amalgamated Esquimalt and Victoria police departments more than three years ago, and has warned other Greater Victoria municipalities that if they don't integrate their departments voluntarily, they could face a similar fate.

But at the ground level, amalgamation hasn't impressed Mike Harris, whose family has owned Esquimalt Plaza Dry Cleaning for 40 years.

As president of the Esquimalt Plaza Merchants Association, he has been threatened by panhandlers, watched homeless people drink alcohol and urinate in front of his store, and seen prostitution deals unfold in the plaza's parking lot.

But he said when he phones police, they generally don't arrive in time to deal with the problem. And he said he rarely sees them on patrol.

"It's a system not really working, in my opinion," Harris said in an interview before the evening meeting. "We need to set up a model where we have some community presence, and some police here who get familiar with the people and the neighbourhood."

When Esquimalt had its own force, three officers per shift exclusively patrolled the municipality.

Under the amalgamated force, five of 25 officers per shift are dedicated to patrol what's called West Division. That area encompasses Esquimalt and Vic West, and as far as Mayfair Shopping Centre.

However, patrol officers can also be called to other incidents, and police say response times vary depending if something more serious is happening.

One of the strengths of an amalgamated force is far more than those five officers can end up in Esquimalt for a major crime call, said acting Police Chief Bill Naughton. While that's appreciated, Harris said it is little comfort for businesses that struggle with day-to-day nuisance calls that could be solved by patrol.

Putting more patrol officers on the street isn't necessarily the most effective use of finite resources, argued Naughton.

"People need to recognize the passive presence of a police officer is not really a significant deterrent of crime," he said. The department focuses on intelligence-based targets, he said.

Nevertheless, police will listen to the business community's concerns, said Naughton.

Amalgamated police forces in other cities have wrestled with whether to provide the local presence residents want when it is deemed inefficient by an amalgamated force, said James McDavid, a professor and co-director of the Local Government Institute at the University of Victoria.

Integration of police units has proven a better solution, he said.

Despite promises to maintain a level of service for small communities, examples in other Canadian cities such as Halifax show that amalgamating police forces results in fewer officers on patrol, said McDavid.

[Mike K.]

Word is Esquimalt already uses more police services than it pays for. Solution? Esquimalt should pay up for more officers, not run to Lowe everytime the community feels it needs more officers.

[Holden West]

I've said it before--cops now patrol in pairs--split some of them up, especially in the daytime and you automatically get more cops in more areas. [url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/910661.stm:0d859]It would still be safe[/url:0d859] although paperwork might increase that could be dealt with too.

[Ms. B. Havin]

Interesting article, Holden. And I agree with splitting the cops up to go singly.

What I noticed about the T-C article on Esquimalt was that acting Police Chief Bill Naughton's view is not called into question at all:

Putting more patrol officers on the street isn't necessarily the most effective use of finite resources, argued Naughton.

"People need to recognize the passive presence of a police officer is not really a significant deterrent of crime," he said. The department focuses on intelligence-based targets, he said.

I'd like to see some real studies (applicable to Victoria or cities of its size) to back this up. I've heard similar arguments from some friends -- that we need more technology, bigger & fancier cruisers (heck, why not Panzers -- joke!), more bells and whistles because the police are going after the Cosa Nostra or the Hells' Angels or whatever. But meanwhile, at the street level, there's no one to turn to for simple things -- and I'm not convinced that those things (which look harmless compared to more organized crime) can be left to fester. So, show me the proof that what Naughton says is true. I don't believe him. "...the passive presence of a police officer is not really a significant deterrent of crime"? Well, maybe not the kind of high-glam crime he wants to go after, but it sure makes a difference at the petty criminal level.

It really bugs me that the police are saying that "petty" crime isn't important enough to them.

[VicHockeyFan]

Saanich police Chief Derek Egan said his department supports integration "where it makes sense and enhances police delivery." Saanich has already integrated with Oak Bay to take over that department's dispatch and serious-crime investigations, and is working with RCMP to battle "mid-level crime" and repeat offenders, said Egan.

But when Victoria enter the picture, Saanich effectively tells it to "piss off," said Victoria police union president Bill Trudeau.

He claimed it was Saanich's top brass that scuttled plans to start an integrated serious-crime unit in 2005. The unit was supported by the Saanich, Oak Bay, Central Saanich and Victoria police unions.

http://www.canada.co... ... e2&k=52747

Trudeau is making more noises today, saying that essentially Oak Bay is contracting out more services, and the fact that they will no longer investigate crimes like murders will prevent OB officers from advancement opportunities, as they will be seen to be a lesser force.

[Walter Moar]

It really bugs me that the police are saying that "petty" crime isn't important enough to them.

Indeed, "petty" crime is the crime that mostly affects people. Vandalism, shoplifting, cars being broken into -- this is what is happening every day to people. The only reason to report these things is to provide an accurate count of what is going on. If your car gets broken into in Victoria, all they do is take a list of what was stolen, and assign you a number.

[aastra]

Police model flawed
By VernFAULKNER
Nov 24 2006

Q: if you're lost in Esquimalt, how do you find your way home?

A: call 911 and wait 45 minutes- then you'll hear sirens in the east as police come over the Johnson Street Bridge.

This is the most savage form of a joke bantered around Esquimalt parties, one that usually generates a half-hearted laugh from residents: its bitter truth more often than not dissolves the humour.

"We don't see the same presence in Esquimalt that we used to when Esquimalt officers were here," said Doug Scott, a prominent local businessman.

The merger of Victoria and Esquimalt police forces four years ago was a chance to prove that wholesale police amalgamation would better Capital Region law enforcement.

Esquimalt business leaders who share Scott's concerns met this week to tell Mayor Chris Clement that amalgamation has failed them.

Whenever Victoria presses for police amalgamation, Saanich and Oak Bay resist - and for good reason: the leaders of those communities fear the loss of their no-call-too-small service to Victoria's whims.

At the heart of the long-standing conflict over law enforcement lies not so much a loss of autonomy or clash of political ideals, but a conflict over philosophy.

Senior Victoria police officers and politicians refuse, for whatever reason, to look at how Saanich and Oak continue to employ no-call-too-small approaches and generally post decreasing crime rates.

When the inevitable comparisons between Victoria and Saanich arise, Victoria's political and law-enforcement leaders claim "big city" problems or differences in demographics as a reason for Victoria's increasing crime rate.

Provincial statistics suggest the Victoria Police Department isn't as busy or as understaffed as claimed.

When it comes to caseloads per officer, Victoria police - despite claims of being overburdened - ranked 27th among police forces in the province's largest (15,000 population or more) towns and cities in 2005.

Big-city problems? Demographics? The highest caseload in the province comes in that hub of urban activity known as Fort St. John, which at 156 cases per officer per year edged out the megalopolis of Courtenay (155 cases per officer) for the title of B.C.'s busiest cops.

By comparison, the Victoria department handled 82 cases per officer per year in 2005.

At the same time, Victoria and Esquimalt boasted the province's highest cost-per-capita for police service and the most officers per capita in the province.

And still, the complaints about poor service in Esquimalt continue.

Dozens of respectable Esquimalt citizens and business people echoed calls for more service in recent weeks.

Yet Victoria Deputy Chief Bill Naughton dismissed suggestions that the Victoria police have lost touch with its customer - the citizen.

Yet the VPD abandoned its community police stations a few years ago, did it not? That is but one of many signs Victoria's leaders and top cops are moving ever further from a personable, on-the-street brand of law enforcement.

Any claims from Victoria that big cities can't opt for cop-on-the-beat, community-oriented policing also fall flat. An international model for community policing lies in Chicago: with a population of three million, it's one of the toughest big cities on the continent.

In 1993, the Chicago police faced a spiraling crime rate and loss of public trust.

"It was a relationship that was not trusting. Most people's encounters with police previously were negative," said Beth Ford, the deputy director of implementation for the Chicago Alternative Police System.

Victoria police often state that much of Victoria's crime comes from elsewhere: the downtown core swells by an estimated 75,000 people per day.

"We don't police the resident population: every time we look at our arrest statistics, about half are from people who are not residents of Victoria," said Naughton.

Yet that excuse hardly stands in comparison to Chicago. That city's downtown population swells by one million through the course of a day - and the Chicago police still use a cop-on-patrol approach as an effective tool in crime prevention.

If anything, said Ford, it's vital to have a visible and constant police presence.

"Business associations and retail merchant associations work with police to issues specific to the community: that's why the model works so well. Each individual neighbourhood identifies what the priority problems are," she said.

By comparison, Esquimalt citizens claim that police patrols are so rare that hookers and drug dealers can actively ply the town's busiest streets with impunity: something they say didn't happen prior to amalgamation.

Citizens also lament a loss of basic patrol presence and note that non-emergent situations like break-ins are usually met with little more than a request to go downtown (that's downtown Victoria, not downtown Esquimalt) to fill out some forms.

Hence, Esquimalt's residents are largely growing displeased with the police. Distrust, disdain and outright fear have followed suit: something the police department and politicians must address, but have yet acknowledged.

The fault lies not with the hard-working in-the-field constables as it does with the way they're deployed and managed.

Sixteen years after Chicago put cops on the beat and into the community, crime rates in Chicago are one half of 1993 levels. Officers patrol a defined neighbourhood for at least a year and often stay in a specific neighbourhood much longer, forming vital bonds with civic leaders, community groups, churches and businesses.

Now, instead of distrusting or fearing police, Chicago citizens are actively encouraged to form part of a crime-prevention solution - hence the halving of crime rates.

If community policing can work there, if community policing can work in Saanich, it can work in Victoria and Esquimalt as well.

Vern Faulkner is the editor of the Esquimalt News.

I have no problem with beat cops but I still don't think this article makes much sense.

1) the guy says Victoria cops aren't really busy after all.
2) then he says they're so busy that policing in Esquimalt is suffering because of it.
3) then he says Victoria has a cop-per-capita ratio similar to small towns in the interior & up island (which implies intimate service from law enforcement, no?)
4) then he claims Victoria's cops "are moving ever further from a personable, on-the-street brand of law enforcement." (if true, and if the cop per capita ratio is indeed similar to small towns, doesn't that illustrate how serious the burden of policing downtown Victoria really is?)
5) then he seems to suggest that the city's arrest statistics, which indicate "about half are from people who are not residents of Victoria", are merely an excuse for not having cops on the beat, because Chicago's core (!) swells with a million people every working day. (The logic eludes me. Maybe somebody here can clarify it for me. )

That last line really bugs me:

...if community policing can work in Saanich, it can work in Victoria and Esquimalt as well.

How does Saanich have any relevance? Saanich doesn't have a downtown. SAANICH'S DOWNTOWN IS DOWNTOWN VICTORIA. But Saanich police don't share in the policing of downtown Victoria. Thus, Victoria proper is carrying a burden that belongs to the entire city, not just the arbitrary political division in which the burden has been quarantined.

Esquimalt's downtown (despite what the author seems to think) is also downtown Victoria. And it sounds like Esquimalt (the neighbourhood, not the so-called town) might be suffering from some spillover from the core. No surprise if that's the case. Esquimalt is right there (although anybody who knows Victoria also knows that Esquimalt was NEVER the comfy little sanctuary that this guys seems to be saying it was before police amalgamation).

Anyway, arbitrary political boundaries and isolationist jargon are great but they don't change the fact that Esquimalt's neighbourhoods are indistinguishable from Vic West's neighbourhoods, which are right on the edge of downtown Victoria. Downtown Victoria has a lot of crime. Just maybe that's the real problem here that nobody wants to address?

Everybody's working hard to try to partition the city for their own benefit, and in the end it's downtown Victoria that suffers for it. If downtown's problems ultimately become so severe that they bleed into the adjacent neighbourhoods, then Victorians (all of them, no matter which contrived municipality they live in) will pay the price.

[aastra]

(Saanich and Oak Bay) fear the loss of their no-call-too-small service to Victoria's whims.

Exactly what "whims" are we talking about? Saanich cops have enough time to operate in a "no call too small" fashion, and yet the writer has the gall to claim Victoria's cops aren't particularly busy??

I suppose Saanich's intimate neighbourhoods and pedestrian-oriented shopping districts make it easy for beat cops to operate there.

Give me a break.

[m0nkyman]

Sorry. I agree with the article to a large degree. We have a problem in Victoria because the police have stopped enforcing the law. They've given up. In large part because there is no enforcement from the courts. How many times do you think a cop can arrest the same guy for B&E before he just says '**** it' and stops bothering to investigate B&E's?

[VicHockeyFan]

How many times do you think a cop can arrest the same guy for B&E before he just says '**** it' and stops bothering to investigate B&E's?

7?

That's also the year he is itching to have an affair.

[aastra]

I can't agree or disagree with him until I have some notion of what he's saying. Is he saying what you're saying? He didn't mention the courts at all.

[Rorschach]

The model of Community Policing the various communities all claim they wish to adopt is a philosophy that helps people help themselves, rather than the police doing everything for you.

The small-town, no call too small philosophy, is the antithesis of modern police theory. The reason is because resources are dwindling and tax revenues are shrinking and the tax base eroding. It can work in small communities. However, the bad guys figure out where Mayberry is and go there to commit crimes or set up the grow op and so on.

If the municipalities want to budget and pay for a very high level of police service, it's costly and for the most part unsustainable nowadays. It's a matter of deciding what to pay for: police or cleaning up the parks, fixing the potholes, and maintaining the infrastructure.

It's no longer viable for the cities to all have separate and duplicative police bureaucracies. It's wasteful and inefficient. However, if the taxpayers want to give it priority over everything else, they'll have it.

It's too late to be thinking that things are the same today as they were long ago, but obviously many people still do.

[Caramia]

I recently attended a meeting of business people around Store Street where the police representatives were offering advice on 'do it yourself' measures, along with volunteering to send someone to do a security audit of any business in order to cut down on crime opportunities. It bugs me when journalists claim something isn't happening, just because they were too lazy to go find out it is.

For Esquimalt, I agree with Astraa, Esquimalt has been a dangerous neighbourhood since I was a youngun. No surprise that with crime increasing everywhere, it has in Esquimalt too.

[Mike K.]

Esquimalt gets what it pays for. If Esquimalt wants more policing the municipality should pay for it. If I remember correctly from a conversation with a member of the police board, Esquimalt pays for 20% of policing costs but uses over 30%.

[m0nkyman]

The small-town, no call too small philosophy, is the antithesis of modern police theory. The reason is because resources are dwindling and tax revenues are shrinking and the tax base eroding. It can work in small communities. However, the bad guys figure out where Mayberry is and go there to commit crimes or set up the grow op and so on.

Yeah, uhm. No.

It's the antithesis of current policing practice in major metro areas. I think you would have a very hard time finding a police officer that thinks it would be a bad idea in theory. The 'broken window' theory is driven in part around the idea that the little stuff is critical to deal with to give a community both the pride in their community, and in building up the trust that the police need in order to deal with bigger problems.

If the police can't be bothered to deal with a B&E to your home, how much trust do you have in their willingness to help you if you've been assaulted or raped? Community policing is the backbone of modern policing theory, and it is based on the police creating a true relationship of trust and co-operation with the community.

[Rorschach]

The concept of "Broken Windows" was indeed to insure that all the small stuff was taken care of promptly, such as fixing broken windows and painting over graffiti. However, the concept is not that the police are doing all these things for the community -- the concept is to get the community involved to take care of all these things themselves.

The more things the police are doing for you, the less people do for themselves. In most cases a police department responding to every whim will not serve the community as this philosophy was intended long ago.

In Japan, police officers on foot patrol spend their day walking from house to house talking to residents and asking them about any problems or concerns in the neighborhood. A good foot beat cop (if there was one) in Esqimalt would want to do the same and spend less time in the patrol car. However, I think here the result would be a howl of complaints of police harassment and invasion of privacy from a minority of people such that the practice would be dead on arrival.

The police have little chance to solve a B&E in anyone's home without some evidence or a witness. If your neighbors weren't watching out for you, why would you expect the police to always be there to interrupt a burglar? Have you taken photographs of your jewelry and kept the serial numbers of valuable items? Do you expect Esquimalt CSI to process every home with $100,000 worth of forensic tests to locate that hair fiber in the flower garden or that flake of skin on the doorknob and do DNA tests of the usual suspects? It would be cheaper for the police to buy you a new DVD player and TV than to devote the resources needed to solve your B&E.

A lot more piece of mind is to be had by getting good insurance and documenting your valuables. A good method is to rent or borrow a video camera and take detailed pictures of your stuff -- zooming in on the serial numbers and model numbers. Clear images of jewelry are needed to distinguish one piece from another if if the police do find your things.

Getting a locksmith to secure your house properly is a good idea too. The right kind of locks and door frames and window locks will discourage burglars.

The best possible strategy is a free one. Get to know your neighbors personally. The more people you know the less chance your home will be a target. You are most likely to be the victim of a crime from someone in your own neighborhood. Your neighbors will not rationalize a van moving things out of your home in the middle of the day, they'll know someone is ripping you off.

If you get that knock on the door from someone asking for someone that doesn't live at your home -- you've probably met the local burglar. If no one answers, they know no one is home. If someone is home, they make up an excuse for knocking and leave. There's plenty of door kick burglars that operate that way.

Are the police going to do this for you? Community policing is completely a theory that people can help themselves and NOT do everything for you. No amount of police attention is going to address the most common crimes. A small bit of attention by everyone will prevent almost everything for literally nothing.

[m0nkyman]

Wow. You completely and utterly missed my point.

'No Call too Small' and 'Broken Windows' are respectively the police's and the community's part of community policing.

Both sides need to be addressed.

[Jeffamartin1970]

We need all police and fire almagamated. It will better help to serve the community as a whole. This is due to better communication, better concentration of services, and no need to worry about jurisdiction, or paying for several senior officers. I think also municpalities as a whole will save money because They will be able to get more police equipment, and protection with out the all the duplication of equipment and services. One Central command with maybe 3 precients(Central Saanich, Oak Bay, and the Westshore). Also you would not have each municipalty having to pay salaries for a chief each, and senior officers. You could have one Chief and maybe 2 deputy Chiefs for all of Greater Victroria. We need more ground level constables not a lot senior police beauracrats. I would say let Sooke have their RCMP but amalgamate all the rest of the police forces!

[Mike K.]

Times Colonist, Dec 04.

‘Contracting out’ not police integration
Integrated units bring the specialized training required in modern policing

BY DON MCKENZIE

In recent weeks the mayors of Oak Bay and Saanich and their respective chief constables have publicly announced a contracting out arrangement that will see Oak Bay police contract functions such as major crime investigations to the Saanich police.

Mayor Frank Leonard from Saanich proudly describes this as “police integration.”

Police integration is a circumstance where police forces and police officers work together in integrated units. Under this type of arrangement, officers form integrated squads that then tackle crime which requires specialized expertise and quite often flows across municipal boundaries.

With the support of the police services division of the solicitor general’s ministry, there has been progress made in relation to these types of integrated units and we have large numbers of them in the Lower Mainland and on Vancouver Island.

On the mainland there are now successful units operating in areas such as integrated homicide, gang crime, child exploitation and organized crime. Although the South Island has not moved as quickly, there are excellent examples in areas such as organized crime and the integrated road safety unit.

A key tenet of police integration is that all officers have an opportunity to work in these units. By working together, a “synergy” of co-operation is established between officers and their agencies, a synergy that will carry back to their home agencies once the officers complete their integrated assignments, which are generally three years.

An additional benefit of integrated units is that officers returning from them bring back specialized skills and knowledge.

All officers want an opportunity to serve their communities in both generalist and specialist roles during their careers. By moving between generalist and specialist roles, officers are able to enjoy varied careers and also serve the community in different ways.

So what is the problem with contracting out? Well, simply put, it isn’t police integration. The Oak Bay Police Department and its citizens won’t have the benefit of having officers who have worked in the specialized services Saanich will now be paid to provide.

They will simply have officers who work in singular roles for most of their careers. There will be some opportunities to work in true integrated units, but those will be minimal.

It will be interesting to see over the years ahead how many officers choose to stay in the limited situation which Chief Ben Anderson has created. It is unfortunate that he did not consider carefully the differences between contracting out and true police integration.

The B.C. Federation of Police Officers supports the concept of police integration as outlined by Solicitor General John Les and his predecessor Rich Coleman. We also support a serious examination of the creation of amalgamated regional police forces in B.C.

We do not agree for one minute that contracting out in any way creates the same type of benefit as police integration.

To suggest so is facetious.

Don McKenzie of Victoria is president of the B.C. Federation of Police Officers.