In 2023, the cost of policing to Canadian taxpayers closed in on $20 billion for the first time. While annual police budgets continue to grow, there is little debate in the media about its cost to taxpayers and the value for money in relation to crime reduction.
This 50 per cent increase over inflation in the cost of policing from 20 years ago is now coinciding with disturbing increases in violent crime. Homicides are up, stoking public fear. Violent crime has returned to levels seen 20 years ago. Canada’s homicide rate is second only to the United States among G7 countries, and is rising as the American rate drops.
The rate of homicide involving Indigenous victims is six times that of non-Indigenous people, and it’s three times higher for Black men.
With one in three women experiencing some form of violence in their lifetimes, intimate partner and sexual violence is now recognized as being at epidemic levels.
The majority of policing costs are paid from municipal taxes and have risen faster than expenditures on transit or social services. The cost of policing at the municipal level per capita varies considerably from a high of $496 annually for Vancouver to a low of $217 in Québec City.
Though much of the rhetoric for justifying increasing police budgets is about crime, an analysis of trends over the last 20 years in Canada could not find any correlation between increases in municipal police budgets and a reduction in crime rates.
Our review of studies in the United Kingdom and the United States shows that investments in programs tackling risk factors give better returns than innovations like problem-oriented policing.
Because policing is reaction? I thought this was obvious. Prevention is key.
Policing is, and always has been reactive. And that’s how it is intended to be, by design.
Complaining that it’s not preventing crime isn’t really helpful, since that’s not what it’s supposed to do.
If you want prevention, you need to look elsewhere.
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That said, the things that do actually prevent crime have been studied for centuries and are well known.
The problem is none of those are cheap quick fixes, and when governments change every 4 years, those programs tend get cut for ideological reasons, and arent given the time to become deeply effective.
The answer is mental healthcare and economic opportunities. If you’ve ever been to a local jail, you’ll quickly realize that the majority of people there needed a mental health intervention in their early childhood. Problem is that there’s no will by anyone to do it. Parents are resistant because of the stigma. Even if they’re not, the cost of mental healthcare is too high if it’s not covered by insurance. Even if it’s covered you get a p-doc once a month for 15 minutes. Nevermind trying to get a diagnosis from a child who can’t explain their symptoms because their symptoms are just normal for them in the first place. Then you have to try different medications at different doses and get everyone on board to take the medication on time every day. That’s all if you can get a doctor that listens to what a kid says. Doing all this as an adult is exhausting, can’t imagine trying to do it as a kid and having to trust a number of other adults not to fuck up.
Complaining that it’s not preventing crime isn’t really helpful, since that’s not what it’s supposed to do.
It is helpful, because a large extent of the voter base does think that increasing the police personnel will prevent crime.
So we should make policy based on what people believe rather than on what’s objectively true?
Policing is about protecting wealth and social hierarchy, not public safety or public interests. But no one who wants to invest more in policing will say this out loud, because they wouldn’t get votes. So, complete falsehoods about investing more in policing to reduce crime are presented instead, as you and the article point out
Are you talking specifically about Canadian police? Because here in Denmark, the police make a big effort to prevent crime. As far as I know, it works pretty well.
Of course not all possible efforts to prevent crime can be done by the police, a lot of it is up to the government.
Vast majority of street crime is failed social policy
Corporate crime is lack of en forcement
Funny how the regime handles these
More police funding just means more arrests, not fewer crimes.
You can’t blame police when our “justice system” (i.e. our courts) makes it a habit of releasing high-risk offenders.
Every time a violent offender is arrested nearby, I check to see what they were arrested for, and without fail it’s multiple failure to comply with court order, and a half dozen breach of probation orders, etc.
And then they are released on a promise to appear… where they re-offend, because, why not?
Until judges are held partially responsible for any crimes committed by people who were released, things will never change.
And I can’t imagine how much it costs taxpayers to arrest the same clowns over and over and over again.
Try explaining that to a Conservative. In fact, even very progressive politicians need to understand this.
I voted for Projet Montreal and Valérie Plante but unfortunately it seems like her answer to “crime is raising” is to dump even more money on the police.
