Canadian Politics Today

Beyond Ottawa => Provincial and Local Politics => Topic started by: Michael Hardner on January 12, 2018, 06:18:57 am

Title: Toronto Police Restructuring
Post by: Michael Hardner on January 12, 2018, 06:18:57 am
Many of you know that discussion around public services is a pet issue of mine,

https://www.torontopolice.on.ca/TheWayForward/files/action-plan.pdf

This is happening, thanks chiefly to the political capital that our excellent Mayor John Tory has.  CBC Toronto is now covering it, albeit from an anecdotal angle: cops are stressed, short-staffed etc.  I am hoping that they can use some objective data to look at the issue and a real public dialogue can emerge.

Recently the chief reported that they are obliged to assign cops to guard broken water mains !  A little light and common sense on both sides needs to happen.  I am hopeful.
Title: Re: Toronto Police Restructuring
Post by: Michael Hardner on January 12, 2018, 06:29:13 am
Cop the radio just said:

- Number of police can't be reduce because the population is growing
- There are more crimes today

These seem to be wrong, although good luck trying to get a BASIC measure of crime over time.

https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiNDU3OGVhN2ItOGY4MC00MWNkLTlhMWItZTcyOWQyOGRjZjE4IiwidCI6Ijg1MjljMjI1LWFjNDMtNDc0Yy04ZmI0LTBmNDA5NWFlOGQ1ZCIsImMiOjN9

That shows crime over the last few years and I don't see it.

This all comes down to management culture, in a public setting.  Public services will always fall short if they are managing to politics instead of managing to reality. 
Title: Re: Toronto Police Restructuring
Post by: Michael Hardner on January 12, 2018, 06:44:59 am
I tweeted CBC Toronto about their lack of challenge to objective claims by an officer and they announced that they will be following up... pretty cool.

I feel that if we can break the ice on some of these issues - create a framework for discussion which rises above 'gotcha' politics, over-focus on pc issues, and anedcotes then Canadian public services could get past our current stasis.  This is not a right/left issue - concerns that are left unaddressed hurt everyone.
Title: Re: Toronto Police Restructuring
Post by: SirJohn on January 13, 2018, 02:32:28 pm
Many of you know that discussion around public services is a pet issue of mine,

https://www.torontopolice.on.ca/TheWayForward/files/action-plan.pdf

This is happening, thanks chiefly to the political capital that our excellent Mayor John Tory has.  CBC Toronto is now covering it, albeit from an anecdotal angle: cops are stressed, short-staffed etc.  I am hoping that they can use some objective data to look at the issue and a real public dialogue can emerge.

Recently the chief reported that they are obliged to assign cops to guard broken water mains !  A little light and common sense on both sides needs to happen.  I am hopeful.

The major problem with police is they're too damned expensive. We pay them far too much for what is essentially a low skilled, blue collar job that mainly consists of patrolling, writing traffic tickets, and refereeing arguments. We're also using them instead of social welfare people far too much, especially since cops make WAY more than those in social welfare. We also need traffic wardens to direct traffic. It's idiotic to have a $100k cop directing traffic at intersections whenever the lights go out or whenever there's construction work of some kind.

The other major problem is the goddamn lawyers mean that everything is too complicated and cops wind up sitting on their butts filing out forms much of their time. I remember reading once there were something like two dozen forms to fill out for a drunk driving arrest. Maybe doing what BC is doing and decriminalizing drunk driving is something to consider. I understand those cases use up a huge amount of policing and court time.
Title: Re: Toronto Police Restructuring
Post by: Michael Hardner on January 14, 2018, 09:35:24 am
You are talking sense here.

The same emotionality that calls forward our need to support police is used to defend the status quo across the board.  Times have changed and we need to improve the 'public''s - or create a new public with - a better capacity to discuss and create a political foundation for economic restructuring.
Title: Re: Toronto Police Restructuring
Post by: SirJohn on January 14, 2018, 09:59:16 am
You are talking sense here.

The same emotionality that calls forward our need to support police is used to defend the status quo across the board.  Times have changed and we need to improve the 'public''s - or create a new public with - a better capacity to discuss and create a political foundation for economic restructuring.

The public's perception of policing is largely based on dramatic television shows and movies and the exceptional story of police shootings. They think cops are constantly involved in life-threatening situations and always racing to save people while locking up violent killers and rapists practically every day. The reality is most cops never take their guns out of their holsters except to practice. Cops, on average, make very few arrests in a year, perhaps half a dozen, and most of those are for property offenses.