Penticton police push for additional members

Penticton Western By Tracy ClarkWestern News StaffJan 12 2007
Penticton’s top cop isn’t optimistic about his chances of expanding the police force by five members in 2007/2008. “I’m not expecting them all next year,” said Insp. Dan Fudge. “There are certain realities we have to face, but that’s my position.” His request comes as the city is looking to save money in order to accommodate the pressures of growth and the South Okanagan Event Centre. “I am not naive about what my chances are,” he said, adding that he is putting together a business plan for the city, which he plans to present to council before the fiscal year end.

The city approved the addition of one new officer for 2007 — completing the RCMP’s request last year for three new officers. The Penticton detachment received the first two in 2006.
The upcoming request for five additional officers, which would bring the local force to 50 members, will include four general section officers to replace the four members of the RCMP Crime Reduction Team, as well as one new forensic identification member.

Fudge said he has been trying to bring the municipal force up to 50 for years. When he started in 2000, Fudge said the force was understaffed. “I’m very pleased with the progress we’ve made in filling those gaps,” he said. The latest information released from the province dates back to 2002 when the local detachment had 38 members — and each member cost $120,248 per year. The cost per officer has since dropped to $118,634. However, as the city has added two officers a year in 2004, 2005 and 2006, respectively, along with one officer this year — bringing the complement to 44 — the policing expenditures have risen from to $5.2 million in 2006 from nearly $4.6 million in 2002.

City treasurer Doug Leahy said the city’s RCMP numbers began lagging after provincial cutbacks in the late 1990s. In 1996, the city received almost $1.5 million for police. That funding was cut and by 2003, the city was only receiving $83,000 in funding for policing costs. Rather than increasing taxes, the city absorbed the costs. “For the most part council took a position that they weren’t going to pass that on to rate payers,” he said.

In 2004, the province introduced traffic fine revenue sharing program, which returned 100 per cent of traffic fine revenues to 70 B.C. communities. The amount returned to the city has been increasing every year, to a total allocation of $413,469 in 2006, up from $390,272 in 2005 and $341,636 in 2004. A detailed description of those expenditures since 2004, shows that $400,000 has been spent on crime reduction, $75,000 on crystal meth education, $50,000 on increasing integration services for the regional detachment, $300,000 on increasing enforcement at crosswalks and intersections and $100,000 on integrated policing in the aboriginal areas.

The crime reduction expenditure was largely due to the creation of the CRT, which Fudge said has been very effective. The CRT started as a pilot project in 2006 and the RCMP have since decided to make the program permanent. The CRT’s four members work with data to target the highest crime areas in the city and focus on repeat offenders. The crime reduction model is based on a model used in several countries around the world. Fudge said the RCMP’s E Division, which includes the local detachment, is increasingly modelling itself after successful policing strategies in other parts of the world, such as the United Kingdom.

This approach to policing includes being proactive, rather than reactive, said Fudge. “Policing is changing, we’re adapting all the time,” he said. This year RCMP will continue to focus on drugs, but rather than continually arresting the same people for the same reasons, the RCMP will be working with the judicial system and non-profit organizations to find out why some people are continuing to go to jail and looking at ways of providing help for those people. “We’re not naive about how difficult that is,” admitted Fudge, adding that this work will involve creating new relationships.

Fudge is also hoping to continue to focus on traffic services. Last year the city doubled its traffic section to two officers. “We don’t do enough traffic work here. I thought we should do more,” he said, adding that the city has too many accidents and too many people running red lights or not obeying crosswalks. Fudge is currently working with the city on the RCMP’s priorities list of 2007, which will be released as part of the RCMP’s business plan in March.