Author Archives: Menno Zacharias

Cameras Solve Crime

Investing in technology such as CCTV to help solve crime may be a prudent use of public funds but only if the evidence supports the investment.  The results of the Winnipeg CCTV Pilot Project are not yet known  but a recent internal police review in the UK shed some light on the effectiveness of the CCTV network in London, England.  

The study reported that in the last year in London 1000 crimes were solved as a result of CCTV.  

That may sound like an impressive number but it has prompted David Davis MP to lament the spending of crime prevention dollars on CCTV.  According to Davis CCTV is a very expensive approach considering its the minimal effectiveness.

London police are looking at measures that can be taken to increase the effectiveness of CCTV and have several projects ongoing to address the issue.  The projects center on how images are retrieved and distributed. 

In case you were wondering London has 1 million cameras in place: that equates to 1 crime solved for every 1000 cameras.

Selecting a New Patrol Unit for Police

A few months ago the Ford Motor Company advised police agencies across North America that it will cease production of the Crown  Victoria which has become the standard police vehicle for most police agencies.  According to Ford the last Crown Vic will role off the assembly line in 2011. 

Ford is pushing the new Taurus as a replacement.  The Taurus is smaller than the Crown Victoria, and is more fuel efficient.  Many police agencies, however, prefer the larger rear wheel drive Crown Victoria which still features the  body-on-frame which is easier to repair.  The larger cab size also makes it ideal as a platform for all the additional equipment police cars are fitted with. 

Some police agencies will no doubt be looking at this as an opportune time to make a change.  Chrysler’s entry in the police vehicle class is the Dodge Charger.  Chevrolet produces the Impala with special police features.  One thing is for certain:  in a few years when you see a police car rolling down the street in North America, it won’t be a Crown Vic.

Joint Winnipeg Police/RCMP Homicide Task Force

The recent announcement of the formation of a joint Winnipeg Police/RCMP Task Force to examine unsolved homicides of women in Manitoba may be a postive step.  Maybe, only because the motivation to form the task force at this particular time is not known.  Many of the cases that the Task Force will be examining have been on the books for many years.  If there have been new developments that warrant the creation of the Task Force then it is positive.  If the motivation is political and the task force is being formed only as a  response to recent demands for action, then it may be a waste of time and effort. 

For the sake of the families of the many victims one can only hope its not the latter.  Political pandering by police would be an  insult to those individuals and groups  seeking a genuine  police response to a very serious issue.

Peel’s First Principle

Principle 1 

To prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and by severity of legal punishment. 

This principle addresses one of the core issues that has dominated debate about policing approaches for almost the past two centuries.  The one argument is that legislatures create laws and that the role of the police is to enforce those laws by arresting offenders and bringing them before the courts.  The role of the courts is to sanction or punish the offending behavior.  Punishment in the form of a fine or incarceration, it is argued, pays the offenders debt to society and serves as a deterrent.   The opposing argument is that the police should adopt a proactive and preventative as opposed to a reactive approach.  This involves education, community involvement and the creating of the public’s ‘buy in’ for law and order – in other words, crime prevention in the broadest sense of the word.  

Many police agencies pay lip service to crime prevention strategies but remain ‘law enforcement’ agencies at heart. They tout their commitment to the community and to the community based approach to policing but operate in a reactive manner firmly committed to after the fact investigation of crimes as opposed to crime prevention.  Some enlightened police executives favour investment in proactive crime prevention strategies while others are simply stuck in a reactive crime suppression mindset. 

In the short term a crime prevention approach can be expensive and until the strategies take hold and yield results, crime may even spike.  The expense and the lack of immediate results are the main reason politicians tend to shy away from funding prevention approaches.  From the political perspective it is much more desirable to be able to announce the formation of a new unit, task force or the purchase of a new piece of equipment (perhaps a helicopter) than to announce an investment in the community in the form of job creation, housing, education programs or other programs that would sever the link between poverty and crime. 

From a funding perspective it can be difficult to link outcomes to specific crime prevention programs especially in the short term.  Police agencies tend to measure results in terms of outputs, not outcomes.  Reactive policing deals in outputs.  These outputs detail police activities such as the number of persons ‘spot checked’, arrested and charged and the accompanying list of contraband that was seized (drugs, guns, money and other property).  Crime prevention approaches measure outcomes and concentrate not on the number of arrests that were made but rather on the degree to which crime was reduced, the level of safety felt by residents in high crime areas and celebrates the positive working relationships between the police and geographical, racial and political communities.  

A sincere crime prevention approach requires that police agencies conduct meaningful and on-going environmental scans to ensure they are in touch with the various communities they serve and that they are in a position to anticipate future trends and put in place programs to deals with such trends before they take hold.    Some agencies have addressed this through a well thought out process of strategic planning while others are continually caught unaware and are put in a position of having to react by creating ad hoc units and task forces to react. 

It is recognized that all police agencies require the ability to react when crimes are committed.  One measure that can be used to establish the degree to which an agency is proactive as opposed to reactive is to look at budget allocation.  What percentage of the police budget is devoted to crime prevention?  If the allocation is low then it can be argued that the agency lacks commitment to Peel’s first principle which lays out the prevention of crime and disorder as their first prerogative.

Peel’s Principles

Sir Robert Peel:  Are his principles still relevant? 

Sir Robert Peel was twice the Prime Minister of Great Britain but his lasting legacy relates not to his performance as prime minister but rather to his role as Home Secretary.  An educated man, having obtained a Masters from Christ Church, Oxford in 1814, Peel achieved distinction based on his reform of criminal law and policing in Great Britain. 

Industrialization and the resulting concentration of large populations in major urban centers in the 17th and 18th century put significant strains on maintaining law and order not only in England but also in major American cities such as New York and Boston.  Police departments in the modern sense of the word did not exist at that time.  The maintenance of law and order was undertaken by the general citizenry in a volunteer capacity.  In some larger centers night watchmen and constables were employed, many on a part-time basis.  Poorly trained and lacking resources and organization these early “police officers” relied largely on physical force and intimidation as a means of gaining compliance.  

In 1829 the Metropolitan Police Act was passed by the British Parliament.  This Act created the London Metropolitan Police Force which consisted of 1000 constables who were mandated to maintain law and order in London on a full time basis under the direction of its first commissioner, Sir Richard Mayne.  This represented the first serious attempt to ‘professionalize’ policing in Great Britain.  

As a form of ethical and operational guidance, Peel laid down nine principles intended to guide police in terms of their mandate, interaction with citizens, use of force and their role in the overall criminal justice system.  Those nine principles are repeated here for reference purposes as they will form the basis for future posts on this topic. 

Although the nine principles have been modernized and abbreviated they are reproduced here in their original form as expressed by Sir Richard Mayne in 1829.  The original wording in some cases assists in establishing the intent. 

Sir Robert Peel’s Nine Principles of Policing 

1. To prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and by severity of legal punishment.

2. To recognize always that the power of the police to fulfill their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behaviour, and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect.

3. To recognize always that to secure and maintain the respect and approval of the public means also the securing of willing cooperation of the public in the task of securing observance of laws.

4. To recognize always that the extent to which the cooperation of the public can be secured diminishes, proportionately, the necessity of the use of physical force and compulsion for achieving police objectives.

5. To seek and to preserve public favour, not by pandering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolutely impartial service to law, in complete independence of policy, and without regard to the justice or injustices of the substance of individual laws; by ready offering of individual service and friendship to all members of the public without regard to their wealth or social standing; by ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humour; and by ready offering of individual sacrifice in protecting and preserving life.

6. To use physical force only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient to obtain public cooperation to an extent necessary to secure observance of law or to restore order; and to use only the minimum degree of physical force which is necessary on any particular occasion for achieving a police objective.

7. To maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen, in the interests of community welfare and existence.

8. To recognize always the need for strict adherence to police-executive functions, and to refrain from even seeming to usurp the powers of the judiciary of avenging individuals or the state, and of authoritatively judging guilt and punishing the guilty.

9. To recognize always that the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them.

Source: Reith, Charles. 1948. A Short History of the British Police. London: Oxford University Press 

Future posts will evaluate the current relevance of Sir Robert Peel’s principles and attempt to determine the degree to which policing in Canada, particularly in Winnipeg, is delivered in keeping with those principles.  Part of that evaluation will involve answering this question: “If Sir Robert Peel were the Chief of Police in Winnipeg would he be making changes”?

Couldn’t Put Humpty Together Again…..

And so it came to pass, that  summer followed spring and crime and violence in the north end of Winnipeg flared up again.  This is a surprise?  Humpty is broken again.  

The William Whyte community and surrounding communities have seen spikes in violence during the summer months for some years now.  That is the reality of north end Winnipeg. 

The next step of course is to fix Humpty.  How do you do that?  That’s simple; you assign all the king’s horses and all the king’s men to put Humpty together again.  And if they can’t put Humpty together again, then what do you do?  That is simple as well: just get more horses and more men, right?  Well, that seems to be the police response in Winnipeg. 

Assigning large numbers of police officers to trouble areas seems to be the standard response in this city.  In and of itself that is not a bad short term strategy, but only if it is paralleled by a long term strategy that addresses the issues that caused the problem.  In the short term, reactive policing may be a necessity to stabilize communities.  However, rushing in large numbers of resources to quell violent spikes in communities is not sustainable.  In order to fix Humpty in the long term, more horses and more men are not the answer.  

What is needed in the north end is a long term far sighted strategy to deal with the underlying issues.  The police service tends to fixate on short term efforts that yield impressive short term outputs and quick political gains. Recently the police service did a crack down in the north end and trumpeted the number of arrests that were made and the quantity of contraband that was seized.  Is this going to fix the problem in the north end?  Will this put humpty together again?

CCTV on Winnipeg Streets

 

The Winnipeg Police Service recently announced that it would be implementing a Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) Pilot Project in Downtown Winnipeg.  

The cost of the project in terms of additional expenditures over and above the existing police budget was set at $460,000.00.  That may not seem like a lot of money when considered in the context of the Services’ overall budget. To put a human face on it, though, it would translate into putting 4 additional officers on the street for a year. 

One would think that the Police Service and the City would not initiate this type of expenditure unless they were fairly confident that the Pilot Project would deliver the predicted results.  The desired outcomes as listed in the Services’ October 2008 report to Standing Policy Committee on Protection and Community Services include: reduce victimization; create a safer environment; and establish a tool for investigation.  The report goes on to describe specific objectives and the criteria that will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the pilot project.   

One of the interesting features of this report is the total lack of enthusiasm the Police Service expresses for this project.  This is reflected in phrases such as “the Winnipeg Police Services endorses the opportunity to apply technology…” and “The Winnipeg Police Service acknowledges the potential for adding video surveillance technology as part of an integrated public safety strategy…”  The level of interest and support is underwhelming.    What accounts for this lack of enthusiasm?  

Perhaps it is an inability to find definitive support or evidence that CCTV actually will deliver on its stated objectives.  The October report implies that the Services examined at least some of the many studies that have been done on this subject when it says “Although some studies state that cameras can make a difference in crime rates, it is difficult to determine if there is in reality a single factor that can be attributed as the deterrent effect”.  The studies looked at aren’t cited, nor is there any mention of studies that suggest cameras have a limited deterrent effect.  One might anticipate a greater degree of due diligence when the city is looking at spending close to half a million dollars.  

Despite the apparent lack of enthusiasm exhibited by the Police Service, and the lack of evidence put forward to support the use of cameras, the project gained approval from Standing Committee, Executive Policy Committee as well as Council, and is being implemented.   

Is this an example of funding and implementing the pet project of a councilor or perhaps the mayor?  The original motion directing the Police Service to “investigate the feasibility of developing a pilot project” was moved by councilor Fielding and seconded by the Mayor.  That may explain the lack luster response from the Police Service. 

Is this a vanity project?  Does someone want to be able to say ‘I brought CCTV to Winnipeg’? 

If indeed this is a vanity project and the City is looking for other technology based approaches that could be implemented, I have a suggestion:  Taser International has a neat little device that attaches to the Tasers carried by members of the Police Service.  It’s called the Taser Cam.  You guessed it, the camera activates every time the Taser is deployed.  This technology might serve equally well in making the citizens of Winnipeg feel safer, and it would have the added benefit of protecting officers from accusations of Taser misuse.  I think in this case a study might even show that there is evidence to support such expenditure of public monies.

Sustaining the Illusion of Crime Reduction

Crimestat has been used as an effective  investigative and management  tool by the Winnipeg Police Service for several years now.  The results have been impressive in terms of showing a reduction in the overall crime rate in Winnipeg since 2007.  If one  links the crime rate to safety,  the citizens of Winnipeg should generally feel safer now than they did 2 years ago as the crime rate for the crimes being tracked has dropped.

One needs to ask, however, whether Winnipeg is a safer city today or whether the Crimestat numbers paint an illusion of a safer city.

The downward crime trend as presented by the Crimestat numbers has been driven by a very effective proactive campaign directed at reducing auto theft.  As the auto theft numbers approach the national average, the decrease in auto thefts will level out.  In the last several years the dramatic reduction in auto thefts have negatively skewed the overall crime numbers in Winnipeg.

For example, currently Crimestat shows an 18% reduction in crime year to date comparing 2008 to 2009.   However, if the numbers for attempted and actual auto theft are screened out there is actually a 6 % overall increase in crime.  This increase is driven by a rise in residential break-ins (11%) and non-commercial robberies (38%).  *

There is no secret to the success of the auto theft reduction program.  The program uses a  multi-faceted, inter-disciplinary strategy unlike the strategies applied by the police service to other crime areas.  As the auto theft strategy accomplishes its goal, the overall crime numbers in Winnipeg will rise.  Unless of course the police service steps away from its over-reliance on reactionary policing and uses the principles embodied in the auto theft strategy to address other areas of crime.   This would not be all that difficult to do now that a working prototype has been created.

If, on the other hand, the service continues with its current “back to the future” course of reactive policing methods,  crime will increase in Winnipeg.  It seems that the current administration is bent on re-creating a policing model from the 1970’s and 1980’s that relies heavily on reactive tactics, a show of force and use of force approaches using SWAT teams and a general avoidance of innovative approaches.

The city recently spent close to a half a million dollars on a CCTV pilot project, to watch citizens in the downtown area.  Perhaps if the City spends another 2 million on a helicopter and perhaps a few additional SWAT teams we can recreate the Los Angles Police Department of the 1970’s and 1980’s.  Or should we stop and ask if that is the type of policing we want in Winnipeg.  I think Rodney King and a host of people who belong to  minority groups in Winnipeg would say no.

Perhaps its time for the Winnipeg Police Service to revisit the principles of policing laid down by Sir Robert Peel.  Perhaps we need to start measuring the performance of the police not by the amount of activity the police engage in but rather by the absence of crime.

*Statistic on crime in Winnipeg taken from the Winnipeg Police Service Crimestat site on 09 07 21