The Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) should tread carefully, perhaps even take a step back, before pushing too hard for implementation of some of the recommendations in the association’s Police Modernization Report.
Portions of the report, released in April, came under fire from police lobbyists, as AMO held its annual convention in Niagara Falls this week. In an Aug. 14 press release, the Police Association of Ontario (PAO) presented results of a survey it says indicates Ontarians are “very skeptical and uncomfortable” with the idea of outsourcing police functions to private security firms.
The idea, clearly aimed at reducing the pressure of policing costs on cash-strapped municipalities, is introduced in the AMO report in the following terms:
“Specific functions should be transferred to civilians or other security providers where appropriate. This could include court security and prisoner transportation, data entry, accident reporting, burglary investigations (provided the burglary is no longer in progress), and forensics among other functions. It should also include staffing for some types of existing ‘paid duty’ functions.”
Given the parameters of the AMO recommendation, PAO executive director Stephen Reid may be over-reacting when he states, “The question is – do you really want to call 911 to report a prowler on your property – who may or may not have a criminal history and have a security guard show up?” It doesn’t appear the AMO is suggesting private security provide emergency response.
However, Reid is probably correct when he says, citizens “are just not buying the argument low crime rates means municipalities can now lay-off police officers and privatize services.”
While it may be tempting to use low crime rates as an excuse to cut police staffing numbers, that approach ignores the role officers are playing in keeping crime down. Cut the number of police available to respond to calls, and those rates could quickly rise.
In any event, while private security firms provide essential and effective services in many sectors, the truth remains the industry generally offers low pay for front line workers who can hardly be expected to provide the expertise and dedication of highly-trained, well compensated, sworn peace officers.
There is actually a local example of an attempt at using security guards to fill a perceived void in policing.
Shortly after amalgamation, the Town of Minto was seeking a solution to an apparent rise in vandalism and break-ins in the wake of the disbanding of local police forces. The OPP was perceived (not incorrectly) as reactionary rather than pro-active and it was felt officers spent too little time patrolling to provide a deterrent.
In response, the town hired a private security firm to provide a “presence” and literally patrol the streets in urban areas. The stated intention was for security guards, who travelled in a marked pickup truck, to be “the eyes and the ears of the police,” and presumably stick to reporting crime, rather than fighting it.
However, the security workers, perhaps mostly in the interest of keeping busy, became somewhat overzealous about what duties were within their authority, such as issuing tickets for inconsequential parking offences on back streets. Some parents were also upset about security workers intensely questioning young people who had the audacity to be on the streets in Minto’s urban areas. The experiment was hastily ended after one of the security firm’s employees was charged, by the actual police, with conspiring to assist in some of the very break-ins the group was hired to prevent – and there’s been little talk about private security versus policing in Minto since then.
There may be ways for private sector involvement and other innovations to lower costs of police work and the AMO report contains many recommendations that are worth a look (the report is readily available online). However, putting security guards into policing situations is not one of the best ideas included.
