(This column was published in the North Shore News on April 9, 2003)
Coping with crime impossible
By Leo Knight
LIKE many of you, my attention has been focused on the war in Iraq these past three weeks.
To that end I have been looking for news of the progress of the coalition troops in a number of areas not the least of which being the Internet.
On Sunday, while looking through a number of European publications for war news, I came across a story in London's Daily Telegraph saying that police in that city are so "overwhelmed" by the sheer volume of crime that even recent extra recruits are making no difference.
The story was quoting a report on crime in London done by the think-tank Civitas which concluded that "only substantial increases in numbers (of police officers) as seen in New York will make an impact on the rising levels of street crime."
The report cited the following as a measuring stick on the problems faced there: "In 1971, there were 17 crimes reported for every police officer and, in 1981, this reached 23. Today, there are more than 40 crimes for every officer."
I wondered how that compared with this country, so I wandered over to the Statistics Canada Web site and checked.
For each of the last four years, the same measuring stick shows that the Canadian average is more than 42, reaching a high of 44.9 in 1998. (Statistics Canada's most recent analysis is for the year 2001.)
Surfing around showed the federal agency didn't do province-by-province comparison in that category.
But, a little hunting and a little arithmetic showed the ratio of reported crimes in British Columbia to the number of police officers is an astonishing 55.4.
More than 20 per cent higher than the national average in its highest year, and, 25 per cent higher than London's rate with which the police force, according to the Telegraph story, is unable to cope.
So how our police forces are coping becomes the obvious question.
The simple answer is they are not.
Thirty years ago, the police attended all manner of reported crimes including such mundane and everyday offences such as minor thefts and vandalism.
Remember when they used to attend all motor vehicle accidents and actually fill out the reports?
Now unless the Jaws of Life are required, you exchange information with the other party and take your story to the police station and no actual accident investigation is done.
Twenty years ago when I transferred from the RCMP to the Vancouver police, I was astounded to find out Vancouver Police Department officers didn't attend vehicle accidents unless there were injuries.
And forget about thefts and vandalism complaints. Unless there was a specific suspect there was no chance of getting a police officer to attend.
Today, in Vancouver, the police won't come to a residential burglary unless there is specific evidence to be had or a suspect. They simply cannot respond to all urgent calls for service and also attend to take crime reports where the suspect is long gone. The situation is only marginally better in jurisdictions with the RCMP providing the service.
Now there are many reasons for all of this, but two simple facts remain: the police are functionally unable to do more with less and crime is rising, no matter what the politicians try and tell us.
What is puzzling is that we have allowed this situation to happen with nary a cry of protest. Our politicians have been wasting our money on all manner of ridiculous pet projects, catering to whining Special Interest Groups and investing in getting themselves re-elected.
Instead of focusing on their primary duty - the protection of the populace - the various governments of the past 20 or so years have done precious little of any value to anyone but themselves and their supporters. The numbers tell the story.
As it happens, coincidentally with the start of the war in Iraq, I was re-reading Winston Churchill's The Second World War. I was taken by a statement he wrote in the chapter entitled The Locust Years in which he was describing the mistakes made by the Western Allies in failing to act to stop Hitler.
He was speaking of the successive British political parties when he said: "Delight in smooth-sounding platitudes, refusal to face unpleasant facts, desire for popularity and electoral success irrespective of the vital interests of the state, genuine love of peace and pathetic belief that love can be its sole foundation, obvious lack of intellectual vigour in both leaders of the British coalition government, marked ignorance of Europe and aversion from its problems in Mr. Baldwin, the strong and violent pacifism which at this time dominated the Labour-Socialist Party, the utter devotion of the Liberals to sentiment apart from reality . . . played a definite part in the unleashing upon the world of horrors and miseries which, even so far as they have unfolded, are already beyond comparison in human experience."
Take away the specific references to governments and individuals of the time, replace it with our federal government and delete "Europe" and insert the "Middle East" and he might well have been speaking of the moribund government of Jean Chretien.
The only difference this time is the United States and Britain are in the game and sadly we are not.
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