Too many cops in Montreal?
Marvin Rotrand, who sometimes seems to have constituted himself a one-man opposition party, a gadfly at city hall, is asking if there are too many policemen in the city per capita, compared to other Canadian cities. But in this, Rotrand is simply joining in the chorus of voices currently demanding the defunding of police.
I haven’t seen anyone noting that crime in general is way down, and I don’t mean only since the pandemic lockdown. Montreal used to have a lot more murders, for example. Someone needs to do a little math showing how many cops we had in previous years vs. crimes committed, compared to current numbers. There very well may be a case to shift some of the police budget to other means of crime reduction – social workers, drug addiction and mental health resources and so forth. It’s quite possible there isn’t enough for our current police force to do in their conventional role.
Also, shoe dropping, maybe we need more policing of white-collar crimes rather than street crime – or has that shift already taken place? Maybe the police actually need better PR to tell us how their tasks are allocated in 2020.
Joey 08:52 on 2020-06-10 Permalink
Would love to see Mtl numbers but in the absence of that, here’s exactly what you’re asking about, only for NYC: https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2020/06/how-many-cops-does-new-york-city-need/
Basically the number of officers per capita is basically flat (up a little,actually) since 1986 while the violent crime rate is down 80% (!). Why? Drum argues convincingly that it’s mostly due to lead removal efforts, which have been shown over and over to reduce aggressiveness and criminal activity among teens and young adults if done properly in childhood. Rotrand may be grandstanding and bandwagon-jumping but I think he’s probably right. If we are at all like NYC, we have a police force built for a level of criminal activity that we no longer have – and probably never will again. So why the need for all these cops, as opposed to other interventionist professionals?
Ephraim 09:20 on 2020-06-10 Permalink
Unfortunately, you can’t really study a correlation between cops and crime because crime statistics are entirely fictional. And I’ve pointed that out repeatedly on this blog. It’s not crime statistics, it’s “reported crime statistics” and the two are NOT related.
There are some pretty simple ways that cops can manipulate the data… suggesting that there is no point in reporting crime, making you go to their station to make the crime report and suggesting that they won’t catch the criminal anyway. (They tried to pressure me to stop reporting drug sales on my streets because it was ruining their statistics.)
But the manipulation is just as bad by corporations. Banks don’t report embezzlement, cheque fraud, kiting or even credit card fraud… because they don’t want the press for it. Which is why I don’t think the Canadian government should allow them to write-it-off, unless it’s reported.)
Did crime go up or down when the police slowed down as a strike action? Did crime go up or down when they stopped writing tickets… you know why you didn’t notice… because it doesn’t matter. It’s like all those people who think there is a still a correlation between crime and punishment… nope, it’s crime and apprehension and apprehension levels are so low that cops need to lower crime reports to make it all look good.
JaneyB 09:46 on 2020-06-10 Permalink
I have to agree about crime stats. Many things are just not counted. In Toronto, for example, there’s a ton of ‘ethnic’ extortion going on eg: shake-downs, bribery, sometimes kidnapping and murder. We hear about the latter when it happens in public but not really the former. This is within the many ethnic communities. I’ve (white Anglo) actually seen a couple of shake-downs while having coffee at an ‘ethnic’ eatery. Those kinds of crimes are very, very under-policed and probably can only be addressed with lots of hirings within those communities due to language and cultural access as well as race. Plus, the emphasis needs to be on community protection to build trust, not so much on arresting murderers. Some of that applies here too but we don’t have the immigrant numbers that TO has. Ideally, cops need to not look like an occupying force and they need to have a stronger emphasis on social work/conflict refereeing and have lots of tools to find and stop extortion. This is in addition to not targeting minorities for abuse, obviously.
Ephraim 10:09 on 2020-06-10 Permalink
And let’s not forget how many “missing persons” are never found. Some of those are likely murders where the body isn’t found. They say that only 23% of rapes are reported… prosecution rate is infinitely lower! Rapes of men are almost never reported… but we certainly see the suicides! How are the police equipped to handle suicidal women and men because of rape? Do they have training? Or is this something that should be handled by social workers? Crime solve rates are horribly low, so making the statistics go away helps make them look better.
Roman 10:39 on 2020-06-10 Permalink
Yes, way too many.
Alison Cummins 10:54 on 2020-06-10 Permalink
It kind of depends on what you’re looking for and why.
For Covid I ignore cases and focus on fatalities — and ideally would like to look at excess deaths. This particularly applies pwhen I’m trying to compare jurisdictions.
That doesn’t mean that “cases” are useless. The people collecting the “cases” data have reasons for collecting it the way they do and will interpret the information in that light. So when test kits were limited, BC heavily tested their health care workers and long-term care residents from the get-go because they recognized these populations as a significant means of transmission both within the health care system and to the community. Elsewhere, testing was done with different criteria. In Rwanda they adapted their Ebola protocol, isolating travellers, tracing and testing contacts, and following up with community surveys to see if they re getting everyone. Here it seemed to be done fairly broadly with a focus on travellers, looking for people who might have brought it in from abroad.
While no set of “cases” numbers is representative of general populations and they can’t be compared, they’re meaningful to the particular committees who asked for them. Even Quebec’s apparently haphazard flailing and wrong-headed testing approach seems to be meaningful because deaths are dropping. I was wringing my hands as we were talking reopening while deaths were increasing, but the authorities may have known something I didn’t because reported deaths are dropping steadily. (Alternatively: they were just lucky; or the reported deaths numbers are subject to heavy political influence.)
Back to crime. When comparing crime rates over time and between jurisdictions, murder is probably the only comparable metric. It’s pretty much a yes/no number. But numbers can still be revealing. Montreal’s downtown has a *higher* reported crime rate per capita than Vancouver’s Hastings. But the Montreal downtown reported crimes are primarily pickpocketing while the Vancouver Hastings reported crimes are primarily gun offenses. So that still tells us something.
But yes Ephraim, as someone from the corporate world I am quite aware of how numbers are cooked because someone doesn’t want to look bad. Which is stupid. But a thing.
Still, we were able to use our numbers to support smart decisions — a testament to the abilities of motivated individuals.
To;dr in the right hands, even bad numbers can be useful for something as long as they have some kind of connection to reality, however tenuous.
Alison Cummins 11:53 on 2020-06-10 Permalink
My limited interactions with police as a nice white lady (anglo version):
• Reporting a B&E at my home. Helpful: explained that they were not going to find the person and that I was unlikely to ever find my stuff, but explained how to change the lock so this wouldn’t be a problem again.
• Reporting a missing person at risk for suicide. Counselling and stern lecture to missing person included. Extremely helpful.
• Reporting a “missing person” [black, mentally ill] so I could find which homeless shelter to leave cigarettes at. Helpful: quick; good communication [to me]; brief counselling and referral to appropriate services [to “missing person”]. This was in Ottawa though, not Montreal.
The impression I get is that most cops, like most people, like to feel helpful. When they aren’t going to be able to fix something they get curt and cranky. When they can help out the person in front of them they do their best, and that often involves counselling. I think we all agree that’s part of their job.
Then there are the assholes who like to hurt people and boss them around, who see the world as their enemy. The problem is not so much that these folks exist (they exist everywhere) as when they are enabled, protected and even get into positions of power and decision-making.
mare 19:07 on 2020-06-10 Permalink
I bet the police brotherhood will claim that there are so few murders exactly because there are so many cops on the streets (and because they’re doing such an excellent job).
Ephraim 05:58 on 2020-06-11 Permalink
There is a correlation between reported crime rates and abortion…. let’s see them explain that one. Crime was up in 2018, did it have anything to do with the police at all? Not if you ask them. And worse, it wasn’t petty crime… it was violent crime.
The police have so little effect on crime… car theft as an example. When has the police had an effect on car theft? Electronic immobilizers, car trackers, etc…. those have an effect, the police? Might as well hire Buston Keaton.