Highly regarded crime analyst enlisted by RCMP

By Jennifer SmithStaff reporterJan 31 2007 http://www.kelownacapnews.com/

The Kelowna RCMP have a new crack analyst tracing crime in Kelowna. Melanie Boudreau joined the Kelowna RCMP as their first and only civilian member in September. She comes to the department with four years experience working on crime analysis in the Lower Mainland and a masters degree in criminology. “We’re told she was the Wayne Gretzky of analysts in Surrey,” Kelowna RCMP Supt. Bill McKinnon said as he introduced her to city council this week.Like the characters on television’s top crime dramas, Boudreau will build time lines for crimes and track criminal associations with a daunting array of line diagrams and flowcharts, and already has so much work her boss has had to take some away.

“Everybody wants Melanie to work on a project,” McKinnon said, noting his officers have come up with plenty of queries. The majority of funding for the new position comes from local RCMP coffers funded by the city and province, but the RCMP’s Criminal Operations Unit also picks up 30 per cent of the cost. Whether Boudreau’s work leads to more arrests or deters crime remains to be seen. “We like to be intelligence-driven, but it’s not always that easy,” McKinnon saidfollowing on the heals of policing efforts in Australia and New Zealand, Kelowna RCMP are trying to bring their overburdened detachment under control by targeting so-called “prolific offenders.” As an example, McKinnon raised one offender’s arrests—12 robberies since 2005.
Kelowna RCMP believe they are dealing with roughly 50 such offenders.