POLICE STRATEGY

Those B.C. Police Forces That Shut Down Growing Operations Without Laying
Charges Are Seeing Increasing Numbers Of Growers In Their Communities, A
Study Suggests

Police in B.C. raid about 2,000 marijuana growing operations a year -- a
rate of more than five a day.

Some communities even have dedicated teams of officers that do nothing but
take down growing operations.

But a new study by the University College of the Fraser Valley suggests
that while police in B.C. are busy shutting down growing operations, they
are getting worse at catching the growers.

From 1997 to 2003, the percentage of raids that resulted in "no-case
seizures" -- in which police seize plants but don't pursue charges against
anyone -- jumped dramatically from 35 per cent of all raids to 64 per cent.

Many no-case seizures involve cases where there is no one in the operation
during the raid and police don't have reliable information on who runs it.

But the study found even in the cases where a suspect is identified, 42 per
cent of raids resulted in no-case seizures.

Remarkably, the study shows even some of the biggest growers -- those with
more than 100 plants -- are routinely getting a pass, with police failing
to send a report to the Crown counsel in 32 per cent of such raids.

Insp. Paul Nadeau of the RCMP's Coordinated Marijuana Enforcement Team said
he thinks some police forces -- especially those in smaller communities --
have decided it is a better use of their time to bust a lot of growing
operations than to spend their time building criminal cases against a few
suspects.

"Some jurisdictions may decide: Let's just go around and bust these places
and not concern ourselves with whether or not we catch anyone at the
residence. Let's just try to get rid of this, let's catch up to these
files," he said.

Darryl Plecas, a criminologist and lead author of the study, said he also
thinks some front-line officers are simply not interested in doing the work
necessary for a formal charge.

"To actually take a case and investigate it is a lot of work," he said.
"It's much easier just to say: 'It's off the street and I don't have to
worry about going through court, I don't have all that paperwork -- the
hard part of it.' "

The problem, said Plecas, is that it would appear that no-case seizures are
a bad way of trying to control growing operations.

While he is still analysing the data, Plecas said his research suggests
that jurisdictions that rely heavily on no-case seizures one year tend to
see an increase in subsequent years in the number of reported growing
operations in their community.

By the same token, those police forces that aggressively pursue criminal
charges against growers are more likely to see a reduction in the problem.

"Growers have got this figured out," said Nadeau. "They know which
jurisdictions are charging people or not and they're conducting themselves
appropriately."

Nadeau added that some jurisdictions are failing to identify suspects in
growing operations because they're unable, or unwilling, to put the time in
to investigate them properly.

"Detachment A may go to a grow-op with a search warrant and immediately
execute the search warrant, whereas Detachment B may sit on the residence
and wait until there's someone home, so they have someone on-site that they
can charge," he said. "It's more time invested in it -- but you get a body."

Plecas' report notes that jurisdictions differ widely in their use of
no-case seizures -- from virtually none to as high as 75 per cent of all raids.

However, Plecas declined to identify which jurisdictions make the most use
of no-case seizures for fear of embarrassing particular departments.

Four years ago, The Vancouver Sun reported that the Vancouver police
department's "Grow Busters" team had raided more than 100 growing
operations without laying a single criminal charge -- the result of an
official policy to devote resources to shutting down operations instead of
building criminal cases.

Once the policy was made public, the VPD began pursuing charges in more
cases but has continued to focus primarily on no-case seizures, saying it
believes them to be the best use of scarce police resources.

Nadeau said he is hopeful that, once police have had a chance to review
Plecas' report, no-case seizures will become a thing of the past.

"Did anybody realize that no-case seizures would result in an increase in
grow-ops in a specific area?" he said. "At first blush, it looks to me like
a bad approach. . . . [And] when jurisdictions see that, they're going to
change."