CRIMINALS ENJOY EASY LIFE IN B.C.

We Need To Invest More In Police To Stem The Tide

If you've been cleaned out by thieves, your car ripped off by robbers
looking for getaway wheels or you've been a target of scammers, don't
expect cops to collar the culprits.

In B.C., they seldom do.

Connect the numbers from Statistics Canada and you see a picture of near
lawlessness here, with a charge rate so pathetic it's embarrassing.

According to Statistic Canada's Centre for Justice, B.C. is at the bottom
of the provincial pile when it comes to cracking most crime.

Rogues who specialize in property offences -- and goodness knows we have
our share of them -- have a better than 90-per-cent chance of never being
arrested. Their buddies, the B&E artists, have a 94-per-cent chance of
never getting caught. But neither criminal has it as good as the car thief
who can laugh all the way to the next heist knowing he has a 97-per-cent
chance of never hearing from a police officer.

Lump in all crime, and B.C. still has the lowest clearance rate; only 14.5
per cent of all criminal deeds committed in B.C. result in charges against
a suspect.

Saskatchewan, on the other hand, boasts the best rate; police make arrests
about one-third of the time.

Does this mean municipal cops and Mounties in B.C. are lazy or indifferent?

Of course, police say not. They will tell you it has less to do with time
squandered at the doughnut shop and more to do with a lack of adequate
resources in a crime-infested province.

Federal research tends to back this claim. While Newfoundland and Labrador
boast the lowest property crime rate for 15 years running, B.C. has had the
highest property crime rate for the past 25 years. We're tops at drug
crimes, too, boasting Canada's highest rate for 20 years straight.

All of which prompts police to say their crime-busting resources are lame
when stacked against the muscle of B.C.'s criminal element.

In other words, too few police are being deployed to wage war on too many
criminals and too much organized crime, which has vast resources at their
beck and call. And the numbers prove them correct: Not only is B.C's
overall expenditures on enforcement below the national average, so is the
number of our officers.

As far as levels of policing go, B.C. has 171 officers per 100,000
population, tied for sixth place with New Brunswick, leaving Nova Scotia,
Saskatchewan, Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba with more cops and less crime.
Ditto for per capita funding on policing -- we're in the middle.

No matter what we think of some cops -- and clearly Vancouver's lot have
some explaining to do -- there's got to be a link between policing levels,
budgets and charge rates. That's why I support efforts to add more officers
to the count, particularly in Vancouver, a magnet for drug dealers and
users. We can't expect police forces to launch go-get 'em initiatives
against groups such as the Hells Angels, which require sacrificing 100
officers for 20 months, if we lack the bodies to do the work. If we want
more, we've got to be ready to pay more.