RCMP Seek 4 New Officers In 2007 Budget
RCMP Superintendent Dahl Chambers wants to bolster the local force by adding four new officers this year.
In his 2007 budget presentation to city council, Chambers has reminded councillors that this is year two, of a two-year plan that saw three officers added midway through last year.
If approved, the four new additions would start this July at a cost of $236-thousand dollars...that figure would rise to $472-thousand for the full year in 2008.
Chambers says auto thefts and break-and-enters are two of the areas identified as high priorities in the detachment’s crime reduction strategy and these extra officers would have a direct impact.
"The four members I’m looking for now would go right to our watches to be response-to-call patrols, foot patrols, and to conduct investigations," says the superintendent, "But on the general duty side, so they would be in uniform creating more visibility in our city and more investigative capacity, as well."
Chambers says his goal is to create target teams that focus on emerging crime trends in the city. He says, for example, that if the detachment’s computer tracking system noticed a spike in vehicle thefts from one area of the city, the additional officers could be used to target the area. "That’s the future, that’s where I want to go with this, I think it’s a great way to do business."
The Prince George Detachment ended 2006 with an average of 113 officers, despite a contract for 121 (the difference being the result of issues like medical leave, maternity leave, transfers, etc.) This year, the detachment is budgeting for 119 staff, but wants the contract with the city to go from 124 to 128 officers.
The overall proposed budget for police services for 2007 is $16.7-million dollars, up $900-thousand dollars over last year due to salary increases and increased expenses like fuel. Councillor approved the base budget, but deferred a decision on the extra officers to the last budget meeting when all service enhancement requests will be considered.
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Posted by: lmorg on February 8 2007 9:03 AM
That could mean the local force is made up of mainly younger members with high numbers of incremental salary increases and few new officers coming in at lower scales. Or is the force having higher than inflation lifts accross the board? Is this going to be an average increase in all city services? Of course, that does not include the addtional manpower request.
How many members have been added in the last 20 years while the city's population base has remained the same?
I am just not confident that more members will mean less crime. Can a correlation like that be shown over the past 20 years? Or are we simply dealing with an intangible such as: "If there had not been more members then the crime level would have gone even higher."?