Pubdate: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 Source: Expositor, The (CN ON) Copyright: 2007 The Brantford Expositor Contact: http://www.brantfordexpositor.ca/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1130 THE COST OF POLICING At first sight, the numbers don't make sense. Crime is down in the city, yet Brantford police want to increase their 2007 budget by 9.2 per cent. City councillors have been asking some tough questions. Do police really need $20 million this year, $1.8 million more than in 2006? Where would the increase go and how would the higher spending help the community? Coun. Greg Martin deserves a pat on the back for demanding answers. Police spending merits the same thoroughness of review as other items in the city's budget. The police services board didn't help its case by failing to follow the budget format requested by city council. Instead, the police budget included new spending with existing items. And instead of following council's request to further separate new items into "unmet needs" and "urgent needs," the police budget calls its new items "critical needs." Councillors can't be blamed if they have suspected, if only for a moment, that the police services board didn't want to play by council's rules. Police have answers. Chief Derek McElveny and Deputy Chief Jeff Kellner responded to councillors. Acting Insp. Geoff Nelson also presents the police's position on this week's Expoditorcast. (To hear the podcast, go to www.theexpositor.com, double-click on the Expoditorcast icon and download the show.) Incidents of crime per 1,000 population have declined slightly in the last four or five years, but the nature of crimes is changing. Brantford is growing, prospering and attracting the attention of big-city criminals. Our police are dealing with more drugs, guns and gang activity. The city has more crackhouses and growhouses. This type of crime demands more police resources. In the old days, most local crime was committed by home-grown, unsophisticated suspects. Today's crime has graduated to involve bigger league criminals from Hamilton and Toronto. Today's Expositor tells the story of a Brantford family, who were kidnapped, held at gunpoint and moved around southern Ontario. It's believed the incident was drug-related. The father handed over $100,000 in cash. He was threatened with death, tortured and placed for a time in a shallow grave. One man has been charged. Police were continuing to seek four others. This one case will require many hours of investigation. We don't know if every dollar of the police budget is justified. However, we do know it would be a mistake to cut back the police budget simply because statistics show a small decrease in reported crimes. - --- MAP posted-by: Derek