Police Request for Extra Officers on Hold

Monday, February 08, 2010 08:13 PM

Prince George, B..C. – The RCMP detachment in Prince George has 128 members and is hoping to boost that to 131. But Superintendant Butterworth Carr will have to wait until February 24th to see if Council will approve the extra expense.

While the addition of three officers may not seem like much, it would add $134,826 this year, ( for partial year) and a full $404,478 for 2011.

Superintendent Brenda Butterworth Carr says while the calls for service are down, the number of charges for personal offences and property crimes are up. “We are seeing spikes in certain types of crime, while we are down in calls, about 2,000 compared to the previous year, but we have seen an increase in aggravated assaults.”

Butterworth Carr says the Detachment has done what it can to maximize positions, “We are bringing in as many cadets as possible as we can get two cadets for the price of one member.”

She told City Council that while the balance sheet for 2009 registered a surplus, it was because of a shortage of non-commissioned officers, when on any occasion, the Prince George detachment was short ten NCOs, a situation that has now been corrected.

Within 2009 the detachment has focused on the priorities of organized crime and the downtown. Superintendent Butterworth Carr says the City can also expect to see some activity in the new few months that will focus on prostitution including suggesting some bylaws that will help the detachment in that battle.

Butterworth Carr stressed the need for three more officers saying it will help in recruitment and retention as she will be able to provide a healthier working environment that has enough officers to share the duties in an equitable way.

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Posted on Monday, February 08, 2010 08:13 PM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: seamutt on February 8 2010 10:46 PM

What gives? Isen't our population decreasing.

Posted by: Municca on February 9 2010 8:16 AM

They just sent members to the Olympics for 6 weeks. It is obvious to me that they are not needed if they can leave for that long. We need to lower the budget and this is a great place to start.

Posted by: acopolympics on February 9 2010 10:02 AM

If they could figure out a way to tax all the earnings from the criminals who fly under the radar this city would be rich. The only yardstick to gauge the population is polls and criminals like to remain anonymous. I personally don't think PGs population is shrinking that much by the looks of the traffic, but rather is being transformed from visible tax paying people to more anonymous non-tax paying people.

Posted by: Palopu on February 9 2010 10:59 AM

I think you may find that the RCMP contract calls for 128 Members and they want to increase it to 131, however the actual number of members is 121 and that would increase to 124.

Does the contract have any bearing on **boots on the ground** who the hell knows.

What we do know is that we have as many or more Police than other Cities of a similiar size, and we probably do not need any more. What we need perhaps is a different way of distributing the manpower.

Remember it wasnt that long ago that we transferred three officers out of communnity policing, and hired 3 civilians to do the work. Im sure these 3 civilians do not show up in the Police Numbers, even though they are doing work that used to be done by the Police.

Every Government department will ask for more money and more staff because the alternative would be to face funding cuts and lay offs. Not much chance of that happening. They can always justify the increases, but never seem able to come forward with some serious decreases. This makes them all **one dimensional** and therefore their budgets have to be cut by the Mayor and Council.

Posted by: lmorge on February 9 2010 6:38 PM

You will find that many of the junior members wish to leave prince george for various reasons for the most part: the workload is heavy, violent, and the city is, let's face it: polluted and dirty. Not exactly great for retention.

A "cadet" coming from regina is basically just a number and is realistically no good on their own until they have at least a year or two under their belts. A constable is not really truly effective until they have at least 5 years on the street, especially in PG.

Posted by: Mr. PG on February 9 2010 7:12 PM

Backoff Butterworth!

Our population is decreasing, our taxes are rising and Butterworth wants more.

It did not take long for Butterworth to figure out how City Hall works.