Jeff Nagel (BC Local News) – Gangland killings have eased and new strategies to reform repeat criminals are continuing to pay major dividends, according to B.C.’s top RCMP officer.
Pacific Region Deputy Commissioner Gary Bass gave an optimistic outlook of policing in the province in a recent wide-ranging interview with Black Press.
He acknowledged much public attention is focused on the pending release of findings of the Braidwood Inquiry into the death of Robert Dziekanski, who died after being tasered at Vancouver airport in 2007.
Bass said an ongoing string of high-profile cases of officer misconduct is not reflective of the broader force, nor does it signal an upswing in such incidents.
For the past year, he said, the RCMP has shifted to a policy of “proactively” announcing cases where officers have been arrested or charged with crimes, even if they were off duty.
“We’re being more open about it,” he said, adding the force has been under “significant stress” but he sees better days ahead.
Fewer gang-linked murders so far this year compared to last year is one area of improvement.
“We’re seeing fewer open air kind of shootings,” Bass said. “That’s not to say we’re not getting drive-by shootings, we are. But we’re not getting the numbers of confrontational shoot-outs that we were.”
He said longer-term gains depend on education and preventing youth from getting involved in organized crime.
More significant, Bass said, is the continued decline in overall crime rates, which he attributes to the RCMP’s pioneering crime-reduction initiative.
“It’s beyond all expectations,” Bass said. “The stats are down consistently.”
The RCMP now employs more than 110 crime analysts to harvest patterns using databases. They help track prolific offenders, predict crime and decide how to deploy officers.
Teams of officers use the intelligence to target crime hotspots.
Police closely watch the most prolific criminals after they’re released from prison.
The per capita rate of car thefts is down 55 per cent in RCMP’s B.C. detachments from their peak in 2004. That’s not just a result of measures like bait cars or anti-theft devices.
Break-and-enters are also down by about 38 per cent since 2004 on a per capita basis.
And Bass said the results are even more impressive at some of the specific crime reduction test sites, such as Kamloops.
While the new tactics initially aimed to take repeat criminals out of circulation, the latest emphasis is on rehabilitation.
Bass said further gains are coming by partnering with other social agencies to help offenders kick drugs, find housing and get other assistance they need.
“It’s focusing on the people that need to be focused on.”
Those trials of integrated prolific offender management are underway in six cities – Kamloops, Prince George, the Capital Regional District, Surrey, Nanaimo and Williams Lake.
Bass noted much property crime is tied to other offences – a truck may be stolen, for example, to commit another crime.
He confirmed negotiations are now underway with the provincial government over the potential renewal of the RCMP contract in B.C., which expires at the end of 2012.
Attorney General Mike de Jong and NDP critic Mike Farnsworth have recently acknowledged it would be considerably cheaper for B.C. to continue using the RCMP.
Another factor making it difficult to turn out the Mounties is the new RCMP E Division headquarters – a billion-dollar project under construction in Surrey with federal funding.
Bass also addressed the recurring calls for a regional police force that puts the Lower Mainland’s patchwork of RCMP detachments and municipal police forces under the same uniform and command structure.
He said several existing integrated policing teams targeting gangs are being merged to ensure an improved regional approach to serious crime.
“That’s just about finished,” he said. “It’s about 330 people it brings under one roof.”
He rejected suggestions municipal police and RCMP in B.C. aren’t sufficiently coordinated.
Every officer in the province, regardless of force, uses the same records management system, he said, something not found in Ontario or most U.S. jurisdictions.
He noted many local cities continue to prefer their own police to a regional force to ensure a customized approach to local priorities.
Bass said the current system of locally directed forces but with a regional response to major crime delivers the best of both worlds.
He noted directing a single regional police force would be a challenge since it would answer to as many as two dozen different mayors and city councils.
“Different communities want different things,” he said. “You can’t really talk police regionalization until you talk political regionalization. That’s the reality.”
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