RCMP LAUNCHES INTERNAL REVIEW OF INSITE REPORT, BUT DEFENDS RESEARCH

Deputy Commissioner Defends Studies As a Normal Part of the Millions
It Spends on Research

The RCMP has promised to conduct an internal review into reports that
it commissioned which criticize Insite, Vancouver's supervised injection site.

But the force's deputy commissioner also defended the studies as a
regular part of the millions of dollars worth of research it conducts
every year.

On Wednesday, RCMP Deputy Commissioner Gary Bass wrote to Julio
Montaner, clinical director of the B.C. Centre for Excellence in
HIV/AIDS Research, in an open letter posted on the RCMP's website.

He admitted the RCMP conducted some controversial research at an
Insite supervised injection site, which discredited the Centre for
Excellence's positive findings. Bass said the Mounties would be
conducting an internal probe.

"The allegations made in the Pivot application regarding possible
politically motivated research are of a serious nature and are
deserving of response ... [they] are taken seriously and are under
review," he wrote.

The letter, which appeared on the RCMP's website Thursday, was posted
in response to a request last week by the Pivot Legal Society to
federal Auditor-General Sheila Fraser to examine the RCMP's
commissioning of research on Insite, Vancouver's supervised injection site.

Pivot Legal Society lawyer Douglas King said Bass sent a similar
letter to Pivot.

"It is positive they're coming to the table and acknowledging they
did this, but it shows serious deficiencies in the way they do their
research, and we're hoping their investigation comes to these conclusions."

Bass said the force was concerned with Pivot's allegation that RCMP
members asked that no reference to the Mounties be included in the
research, that "attempts were made to create an appearance of
independence for research which may have been funded by the force," he wrote.

At the same time, Bass also defended the police force's practice of
commissioning studies that could help improve public safety and policy.

He wrote, "Our belief in the value of research is manifest in RCMP
"E" Division's current five-year engagement with the Institute of
Canadian Urban Research Studies at two B.C. universities to develop a
rigorous research backdrop to our operations."

Simon Fraser University's Institute of Canadian Urban Research
Studies (ICURS) is a think tank that focuses on crime reduction
policy, land use and analysis of urban landscape in finding crime
patterns, according to Brian Kinney, director of the ICURS research
lab, and assistant professor of SFU's school of criminology.

The Mounties contribute $1 million toward the salaries of researchers
at both SFU and the University of the Fraser Valley, where Darryl
Plecas works as RCMP Research Chair in Crime Reduction.

The schools and researchers remain independent, he said.

"We don't have the phone ring and hear that the deputy commissioner
wants to have auto theft in Burnaby examined," said Kinney. "We don't
do anything that we wouldn't do as part of our own academic interest."

Alan Castle, officer in charge of criminal analysis for RCMP "E"
division, said the RCMP receives funding from all three levels of
government for studies of everything from improving efficiency of
emergency calls to criminology studies.

"The frustration is there is a lot of good work toward credible
research activity within the RCMP, and that progress is being hurt by
[the controversial Insite study]. However you slice it, this is not a
'good news' research story," said Castle.

RCMP spokeswoman Annie Linteau told The Vancouver Sun last week the
RCMP paid $15,000 for two of the four reports, one of which was
written by a researcher affiliated with the Drug Prevention Network
of Canada, which opposes Insite and harm-reduction.

King said by any standard of academic research -- transparency,
upholding academic standards, and peer-review -- the force failed the
public with the Insite report.

"If the RCMP does do what they say -- that they do research all the
time, and have standards for research -- this is clearly the case
where it didn't live up to their standards.

"We hope this will be one of the conclusions that they're going to
come to in this internal inquiry."