In a speech last week, Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan took a shot at politicians who think they can show they’re getting something done by hiring more people.

He said this two days after he released his long-awaited plan to bring some civility back to the streets of Vancouver. The plan has 10 points. Ironically, four of them are about hiring, directing or supervising more people.

Two of the six points are devoted to “realigning” initiatives that have been underway for years. Three are devoted to reviewing things for a couple of months.

But in the midst of all the reviewing and realigning, there are two ideas worth noting.

First, the plan says the city “may” hire new bylaw prosecutors.

The bylaw prosecutors enforce those hundreds of tickets for public disorder the police hand out down on Granville every weekend.

With too few prosecutors at city hall, almost none of those who get ticketed ever end up in court. They never see meaningful consequences and, as a result, the tickets just give bragging rights to the biggest rowdies.

Second, the plan says city council will ask police to beef up its street presence. A sensible idea, but with a hitch: Council wants the added police officers to come out of the existing force.

The new policy might get a few of the current officers out of their cars. But to make it meaningful, they’re going to have to add officers who walk the beat.

That means redeploying cops who are, at the moment, busy with other things — things like responding to priority-one calls.

Priority-one calls come from citizens about crimes in progress — you might report a guy selling drugs in the playground across the street or someone breaking into your home while you’re upstairs in bed.

Vancouver police already have one of the slowest priority-one response times in North America. Redeploying them to walk the beat downtown won’t make those response times any quicker, unless you happen to live downtown.

Calling for more beat cops is a great way to look like you’re getting something done. But unless police get more resources to make it happen, they’re robbing Peter to pay Paul.

I ran against Sullivan for the NPA nomination, and I lost. But I supported the NPA during the civic election nonetheless. I liked its plan.

It promised to add 50 new police officers. It also promised “to address the interrelated problems of drugs and addictions, poverty, homelessness and crime.”

With a third of its mandate gone, Vancouver still doesn’t have those 50 new cops. Nor does it have a real plan to address the burgeoning crime and disorder that afflict Vancouver.

The mayor is right: Hiring more people doesn’t always guarantee you’ll solve every problem. But when it comes to getting tough on crime, it seems to me that hiring more police officers might contribute to the solution.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 3rd, 2006 at 1:01 am and is filed under Columns. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.