COUNCILLORS RELUCTANT TO HIRE MORE POLICE

Vancouver's new police chief, Jamie Graham, could face some difficulty
when he asks city council next year for funding for another 44 police
officers. Two councillors who opposed another police-department
funding request last year were reelected on November 16. And all 10
councillors who were elected told the Straight in a pre-election
survey that they oppose a "sharp" increase in the number of police
officers during the next three years.

At the November 20 Vancouver police-board meeting, Graham revealed his
funding-request plan. Last April, the Civic Non-Partisan
Association-controlled city council approved the department's request
for 30 new police-officer positions and 15 extra civilian positions.
COPE Coun. Tim Louis and NPA Coun. Sam Sullivan were the only two
councillors to vote against the request. The city has allocated $127.8
million for police this year, and those extra positions will add
another $2.5 million to next year's budget, according to an April city
staff report.

A September 3 review of the city's credit rating, conducted by the
Dominion Bond Rating Service, stated that higher protection costs
related to the addition of the 30 police officers contributed to
higher expenditures. "Ongoing pressure from taxpayers for increased
service levels, in particular police services, represents the major
cost driver over the medium term."

The agency report did not mention potential costs from lawsuits
arising from the police department's investigation of the
missing-women cases.

Sullivan told the Straight on November 25 that he has serious concerns
about adding more police officers when approximately 70 percent of the
city's criminal activity is a result of illegal drugs and addiction.
"I think it's pretty clear to most of us you don't solve your drug
problems by hiring more police," he said. "If I had to choose where to
put resources, I would put it in European-style initiatives that have
proven to be effective at reducing crime and reducing public-disorder
problems."

Sullivan sent the Straight a six-page review he wrote of a book called
Police for the Future (Oxford University Press, 1996), by U.S.
criminologist David Bayley. "He concludes 'changes in the number of
police within any practicable range will have no effect on crime' and
criticizes 'urban generals who keep throwing men into battles without
any evidence that this will win the war'," Sullivan wrote in his review.

Bayley's book points out that police spend most of their time on
"authoritative intervention" and "symbolic justice" and much less time
investigating crimes. "Authoritative intervention means restoring
order with little attempt to correct underlying conditions that have
led to the need for police intervention," Sullivan wrote. "Symbolic
justice is law-enforcement that shows offenders and public that a
regime of law exists."

Bayley examined 28 cities and concluded that Vancouver averaged 1.5
dispatches per patrol vehicle per shift. American cities had between
two and eight dispatches per patrol vehicle per shift, according to
Sullivan's report.

The city staff report stated that the VPD has 1,126 police officers,
which puts its officer-to-population ratio among the highest in the
country. However, its ratio of civilian employees to police is
extremely low.