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| The Royal Canadian Mounted Police - the Mounties and their worldwide famous musical ride. The RCMP is the national police force of Canada - photo Andrea_44, Leamington, Ontario. CC BY 2.0 via Wiki Commons |
by John Lyons
John Lyons spent many years as a patrol officer living and working in northern Canadian communities. A member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for 28 years, he served as a major crime investigator. For 10 years he was an international crime analyst with Interpol Ottawa. Post policing he consulted government on health care fraud. Now he brings his extensive experience to SafeGrowth, particularly in conducting search conferences to prevent crime and build collaborative networks.
Sometimes it is worth opening a door into the past to see how things repeat themselves.
Over the years, this blog has written about problem-oriented policing, like the 2002 project to cut street drug dealing by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Burnaby, British Columbia. We have also described the street disorder and tragedy of homelessness and street drugs plaguing so many cities, especially in my last blog on Prince George, BC
What does a look back in history teach us?
LOOKING BACK
Some of us remember how economic stagflation and increasing crime rates decimated police resources in the 1970s. Like today, police leaders were told to do more with less, despite increases in crime. Then, as now, there were studies on how police services ought to be improved when officers were overworked and understaffed. Officers were facing intensive stress levels, a well-known problem reported in books and psychological studies.
In that environment, problem-oriented policing (POP) emerged as a re-think about how to deliver police services. POP was seen as a way to cut street crime and decrease workloads during a time of high stress and under-resourced cops. Successful case studies began to appear at the annual POP conference pointing to a new way forward. Things seemed bright, indeed.
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| The Canadian Parliament buildings in Ottawa. The RCMP - Gendarmerie royale du Canada - was established by the Canadian federal government in 1873 as Canada's national police. |
ENTER THE RCMP
Throughout the 1990s, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police launched a nationwide program to retrain its officers and introduce POP methods. They modified the curriculum at the national training academy incorporating a problem-solving model called CAPRA. Training teams traveled from coast to coast to teach problem-solving seminars in each RCMP Division. I know this because I was a coordinator and participant in those teams.
As we traveled coast-to-coast, we noticed an interesting pattern: RCMP detachment commanders and supervisors rarely sat through the training, limiting themselves to guest appearances at the beginning or end. The only Commanding Officer who attended from all the Divisions we trained was in New Brunswick. To make matters worse, no one attended these regional seminars from the national policy center tasked with implementing community policing.
What did this mean?
It meant that RCMP commanders lost out on the informed ‘wisdom of the streets’ told by the operational police officers. The officers in our classes described their physical and emotional struggles – the stressors confronting them daily – as they effectively served their communities. They also told us how problem-oriented policing closely aligned with their own experiences – a message commanders did not hear.
Thus, the major shift required in RCMP culture, from senior positions of command, never truly happened. Then, as now, problem-solving never really became embedded into the operations and organizational structure in cities like Prince George. Except in a few detachments, it did not happen in a systemic fashion.
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| Graffiti on underpass walkway in Prince George |
THIRTY YEARS LATER IN PRINCE GEORGE
We have been blogging about the street crisis of homelessness and drug abuse in Prince George, British Columbia. The Prince George Citizen labeled that city the crime capital of British Columbia
Statistics seem to confirm that conclusion, like a government website showing an increasing crime severity index over the past 7 years.
Conversely, a city website describes a reduced crime rate due to innovative policing strategies such as "community-oriented policing, increased patrols in high crime areas", and the "utilization of advanced technologies for surveillance and investigation".
Nevertheless, in 2022 a consulting group was commissioned to produce an RCMP workload and resource study. That study was delivered to the city in 2023 – the Resource Review of the Prince George RCMP.
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| The City Hall of Prince George, BC, employs the RCMP to deliver municipal policing services. |
The study recommends adding 19 sworn officers and 12 support staff to improve efficiency. At a time when the city already spends 37% of its budget on public safety, it’s no surprise that city councilors are resisting throwing more money at the problem with no guarantee of success.
The study also indicated 20% of sworn officers were on leave, many for mental health and stress-related issues – an obvious red flag for city and police leaders. It was reminiscent of a similar situation in the 1970s and 1980s during the heyday of POP.
OPPORTUNITIES LOST
My sense of the RCMP community policing problem-solving model in Prince George is that it is more an ideal than a reality. The resource study confirmed this by claiming the Prince George RCMP had “near zero community policing capacity” and that it “does very little proactive, problem-solving policing”.
Remember how we introduced problem-solving training and programming to the RCMP in the 1990s? Let’s not forget that RCMP detachments still have good problem-solving bones. Recruits are taught problem-solving through their CAPRA model.
How might they reclaim the lost opportunities of problem-solving that we describe in other cities? Simply adding more officers might seem like a simple fix. But that rarely works without more structural changes. Otherwise, it will fade away as it did before. How might they move forward?
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| The 2024 International Problem-Oriented Policing Conference - retired deputy police chief, Dr. Ronald Glensor moderates alongside POP Center director, Michael Scott. Years ago, the RCMP submitted successful problem-solving projects at this conference and participated in sessions on crime prevention methods |
OPPORTUNITIES GAINED
- No doubt the officers at Prince George, combined with trained support staff, are capable of installing a problem-solving infrastructure and culture. There are already plenty of successful case studies, in-service training programs, and examples where police/community POP has worked across North America.
- Problem-oriented policing projects by the RCMP have already been submitted to the International POP conference by other detachments in British Columbia. This includes projects on retail theft in Langley, BC in 2016, or dealing with prolific offenders in Kamloops, BC in 2010. Clearly, there is no lack of expertise.
- Senior commanders and supervisors need help putting such programs into place. This will mean investment in leadership training, resource support, and the assistance of outside organizations (expertise from local universities, retired officers to help in key areas, community partnerships).
- Finally, for the past 15 years, SafeGrowth has taught communities, residents, and their police across North America how to problem solve by establishing neighborhood safety plans. Police do not require additional officers to do this since the police do not lead the neighborhood planning process – neighbourhoods, business and downtown associations, and community groups do that.
The Prince George resource study sketched out a simplified version of this process titled the Community Safety and Well-being Plan. Fortunately, a model has already been tested and implemented in other cities through the SafeGrowth process. There is no need to reinvent the wheel.
One of the strategies included in the 1990s POP training was precisely this type of community safety planning. Sadly, that was lost to history. But it does not mean it cannot be rediscovered, this time with a large toolbox of updated and modern methods. Prince George citizens, its police officers, crime victims, and those suffering on the street deserve no less.
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