Clash over RCMP’s sexual predator team

(CBC) – The RCMP’s provincial sexual predator team is deeply underfunded and is being shut down, according to an internal police memo, but B.C.’s solicitor general denies that will happen.

The RCMP memo, dated Jan. 31 and released Thursday by Mike Farnworth, public safety critic with the B.C. New Democratic Party, says the Integrated Sexual Predator Observation Team (ISPOT) is so overworked it could lead to increased risk to children and delay the rescue of children from abuse.In the document, Insp. Keith Davidson indicates a government decision not to increase funding to the team means it won’t be able to relieve its heavy workload by hiring more staff.

As a result, the teams will be permanently shut down because the workload means officers “are physically and emotionally exhausted,” Davidson says.

But Solicitor General John Les said that the ISPOT unit will not be closing down. Concerns raised in the memo remain an internal matter for the RCMP, he said.

The memo “had never been approved by senior management within the RCMP and certainly had never been approved by myself,” he said. “So to me those are internal management considerations.”

The current funding for the sexual predator program will continue, Les said.

Les cited a subsequent statement from the assistant commissioner of the RCMP. Written this week, it says the RCMP believes it gets tremendous support from the provincial government of British Columbia.

But Farnworth said the memo proves there are problems with government funding of crucial RCMP programs.

In the memo, Insp. Davidson says a review of the operational impact of the ISPOT teams revealed the following:

“Since the inception of the full-time teams, ISPOT has not been able to develop a reliable target selection method to identify suitable targets, despite numerous creative attempts to do so.

“As a consequence, the crime-reduction value anticipated from ISPOT has not materialized.”

Nevertheless, Davidson says, ISPOT has become a very highly skilled surveillance unit with an outstanding reputation.