We Need More Police

My editorial submission emailed to The Londoner earlier today…
I would like to address the inaccuracies contained in John V. Day’s 2005/02/17 letter to The Londoner.

First, he begins with the premise that the statement attributed to the police chief is true, that “the more police officers we have, the more crime we will have.” That is false.

Although the number of police officers, particularly those whose presence is visible, may act as a deterrent to some individuals, there is no direct corelation. What can be said, is that the ability of the police to detect illegal behaviour, lay charges, process the attendant paperwork, and attend in court, is enhanced by more officers. It follows logically that, the more officers, the more charges will be laid, even though the number of crimes may remain unchanged.

As for the erroneous extrapolation that, with few officers, there will be less crime… Unless the writer depends upon a seeing-eye dog, it puzzles me how he could possibly fail to observe the increased number red-light runners in our community in recent years, just to give one example.

Of course, anybody can question my powers of observation, as the police chief has on more than one occassion. But one has to wonder why the police chief will not respond to my challenge to get into his civies and join me for a downtown walkabout so that they can be demonstrated?