The Price of Policing

Crime, Violent Crime, and Statistics

Toronto the Good has seemed to be in the grip of a wave of violent crime this past year. A mother of two was shot and killed as an innocent bystander across from one of our favorite coffee shops. A few days later a young man was gunned down in the middle of the night in front of a friend’s house. She reported hearing their screams as they waited for the ambulance to arrive. Violent crimes such as these are rare in Riverdale, but all the more shocking when they do happen. The news is emotional, and on every social gathering, the question of what’s become of our city comes up. If, as Robert Peel, the founder of modern policing said, “the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them,” it’s easy to conclude that our police force might be unable to keep up with rising criminality. This is a principal plank of the Defund the Police movement, which argues that police funding would be better spent on social programs and other remedies to reduce the social ills that create crime.??

You can’t have one without the other?

However, that would be a mistake, a false polarity. You can’t have one without the other. It’s recognized in both policing and social services that both services must work together to address the symptoms and root causes of criminality in concert. Unfortunately, the anecdotal symptoms are particularly troubling right now. StatsCan’s latest numbers on crime severity and rates in Canada tell a troubling story. The Crime Severity Index across Canada has risen steadily since 2014, and in particular violent crime has spiked up to severity levels we haven’t experienced since the early 2000s. These statistics certainly bear out the emotional experience of having these crimes occur in our neighbourhood, or seeing them in the news.? This is a real challenge, but there are others. Police departments across Canada are struggling with retention and recruiting. They are constantly challenged on the size of their budgets. The biggest challenge we are faced with isn’t these. We, as a community, have been blinded by sensationalism. Anecdotes, opinions, and emotions reign instead of reason.?

We have fallen into a logical fallacy,??

The media reports on violent crimes, sensational police busts, “astronomical” police budgets, and other titillating headlines that feed viewership numbers, and a false narrative that we are faced with an unprecedented crime wave, police cost too much, and aren’t able to keep up. We’re trapped in the right-hand side of Peel’s principle, and treating the anecdotal evidence of crime and busts as indicative of the efficiency of policing. If we cut through the noise there are some facts the data from StatsCan’s Crime severity index and weighted clearance rates, Canada, provinces, territories and Census Metropolitan Areas tells a very different story.?

Crime rates and severity are at a thirty-year low

?

While we are seeing a spike in the severity of crimes, the crime rate is almost half of what it was in 1991. If, as Robert Peel said the test of efficiency is the absence of crime, police departments across Canada today are 45% MORE efficient than they were 32 years ago. The recent uptick should of course be concerning, especially given that it represents a very real and tragic human cost. That said, it is also a predictable symptom of the current economic situation and social disruption caused by the pandemic. What we’re seeing here is recency bias, or our more recent experience blinding us to the longer-term trend.??

Policing in Canada is a bargain?

Toronto’s recent police budget is almost $1.2 billion. That number has been trotted out by pundits yet again to show how the cost of policing has gotten out of hand in Canada. However, when you look at our population it works out to be less than $400 per person in Toronto. That puts TO squarely in the middle of the pack for the 12 largest cities in Canada, with Montreal clocking in at the top of the list with a shocking (not really) $446 per person. Compare that to New York, New York, which costs $855 Canadian per head and you’ll realize that policing in major centers in Canada is a bargain.???

Efficiency and Effectiveness, or Cheap isn’t Good?

While efficiency is one thing (low cost of service), to truly show the value of policing we need to also look at effectiveness. This isn’t just a good idea; it was a key finding of the recent Ontario Auditor General’s report on public spending. The report highlights something my wife always says; cheap isn’t good. The Auditor General demanded that public sector organizations in Ontario need to focus decisions on value, not just price. Effectiveness tells us whether we are getting value for money. This is where we need to not just look at budgets, price per person, and crime severity rates, but clearance rates. When we look at those numbers the StatsCan data tells a compelling story. Violent crime clearance rates stand at a 30-year high in Toronto with over 57% of violent crimes resolved. This is important because when we look at New York, their violent crime clearance rate has dropped almost 10% in the last three years to 36.1%. ? From a value-for-money standpoint, Toronto looks good by comparison.?

There are only so much to go around?

Over the same period, Toronto has also seen its non-violent crime clearance rate creep down 7%. That’s unfortunate, and it seems fair to say they can only do so much given the limits of their funding. Policing is a resource-intensive business, with 90% of the budget going to salaries. Training, technology (particularly Artificial Intelligence), external experts, and other tools can support the service and improve its effectiveness. But these cost money and the budget is set. We could take a laissez-faire stance and accept that they will do the best they can with it, but this is not just on the police.?

The police are the public and that the public are the police?

It’s easy to think of the police as the other, a service provider that provides a job. That mindset is dangerous though, and as Robert Peel said two centuries ago,??

“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.”?

I’ve had the good fortune to work with leaders in policing across Canada over the past several years from both the technology and core police services side. In that time, I’ve seen a commitment to change and building relationships towards this goal, and overcoming historical challenges with minority communities. That’s not just a perception, police services across Canada have embraced Community Based Policing (COPS) as the path forward. Looking beyond the funding, mechanics, and technology of policing I see this as the biggest opportunity. The price of policing is not just dollars and cents. The real price to pay is to realize we are on this journey together and every one of us needs to build stronger relationships with our local police services. The time to start is now.??

What do you think??