PRIVATE POLICE FORCE WILL COST TOO MUCH

To the Editor,

Re: Private police no solution, Editorial, May 30.

Ah yes, let's create a special policing force for the downtown
community. I wonder if merchants pitching the idea will also be
willing to pick up the tab for this venture?

One B.C. chief of police estimated that it costs as much as $250,000
a year to hire one officer, what with all the expensive salaries,
training, benefits, cars, equipment, computers and office space required.

That money could be better spent on providing the infrastructure that
is so desperately needed by the homeless and drug-addicted citizens -
infrastructure that our politicians in Victoria are so reluctant to provide.

But there appears to be a lot more interest in criminalizing these
people than there is in being socially responsible towards them.

William Clegg,

Nanaimo