VPD'S DRUG CRACKDOWN PARTIAL SUCCESS

The Vancouver police department's six-month crackdown on drugs and
drug crimes in the Downtown Eastside has been judged both a success
and a failure.

The City-Wide Enforcement Team initiative ran from April to September
2003 with the stated purpose of bringing order to the community,
shutting down the open drug market and disrupting the flow of stolen
property.

An evaluation of the initiative released yesterday by researchers from
the University College of the Fraser Valley found that police were
able to accomplish their first two objectives but failed in the third.

"The CET initiative was successful in disrupting a chaotic open drug
market and forcing this drug market to become more orderly and less
public," the report states. "[It] was less successful in pursuing drug
dealers and the associated criminal activity that was displaced into
other areas ... [and] the stolen property market had not been
significantly reduced."

Undercover researchers spent three months watching the CET unfold on
the streets, said one of the report authors, Yvon Dandurand,
criminologist and dean of research at the college.

Dandurand said the CET brought policing levels in the area up to what
they should have been at for a long time.

The CET began while the department was trying to replenish diminished
staff levels and deal with early retirement of about 150 officers. The
report says those issues hampered the VPD's ability to monitor
criminal activity "displacement" and respond.

"What was first conceived as a daring, confident, intelligence-led
policing initiative was subsequently compromised by a lack of
resources and, in retrospect, involved a considerable allocation of
resources directed at a very small area in the city," the report notes.