LET'S SET CLEAR GOALS FOR WHAT OUR POLICE ARE EXPECTED TO DO

What, precisely, will be the benefit to Vancouver taxpayers of police
cameras watching their every move?

If we believe the police, the battle against crime in British
Columbia is being sorely hampered by a critical lack of resources,
giving a lot of bad guys a free hand to get on with the job.

"We know far more about organized crime than we have the ability to
do anything about," an 18-year veteran with the Vancouver Police
Department said in a radio interview last week.

In other, equally dramatic, remarks, Det. Jim

Fisher said that while Vancouver is "a major centre of organized
crime in North America" police are hamstrung in their efforts to
fight it because "resources are at an all-time low."

Coincidentally, in Ottawa, RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli was
giving members of the Senate national security committee a similarly
gloomy assessment.

"In terms of serious organized crime, our best guess is that we are
able to tackle approximately one-third of what we know is out there," he said.

This suggests, astonishingly, that fully two-thirds of the nation's
organized criminals are getting a free ride.

It makes the Conservative government's budget promise of $138 million
to hire more Mounties seem like a drop in the bucket.

Back in Vancouver, police chief Jamie Graham again invoked the
spectre of terrorism to argue the case for police surveillance cameras.

"I'm now convinced . . . that we're going to get back into the camera
business and we're going to work with the civil liberties folks and
some of the people who don't agree and we're going to move in that
direction," he told an interviewer.

What Graham did not discuss was the cost. Today's surveillance
techniques require more than simply stringing up a lens from a lamp post.

In Chicago, where 250 new cameras cost $5.1 million US, the
sophisticated computer network needed to connect them cost another
$3.5 million. That's not cheap change, even though the city claims
serious crimes have taken a tumble.

But Chicago is still Murder Central. What, precisely, will be the
benefit to Vancouver taxpayers of police cameras watching their every move?

Is terrorism really the No. 1 threat, as Graham fears? Is it the
spread of organized crime? Is it meth labs? Dealers feeding junkies
in the Downtown Eastside? How about auto theft, or property crime? Or
maybe it's the 2010 Games?

There is a finite limit to the extra resources available for
policing. And the police must learn to make the best of what they've
got. That means setting clear goals and priorities, in full
consultation with those they serve.