Executives from national security company Canadian Corps of Commissionaires told a parliamentary committee Tuesday that many “less-demanding” duties currently performed by sworn officers — crime scene security, offender transportation, front desk management — could easily be performed by private guards, freeing up officers to tackle more important tasks.
“We certainly can help ease the work burden — never mind the financial burden — that police agencies are under,” Paul Guindon, CEO of Commissionaires Ottawa, told the House of Commons public safety committee.
But Tom Stamatakis, president of the Canadian Police Association, said in an interview that while police agencies recognize they need to find ways to be more efficient, “I’m not sure the solution is simply to hand (certain duties) over to private interests that are focused on the bottom line.”
The debate over expanding the role of private security guards is certain to heat up as public safety officials across the country grapple with how to rein in police spending while keeping communities safe.
At an “economics of policing” summit earlier this year hosted by the federal government, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews told delegates that spending on policing in this country has soared past $12 billion annually, even though the volume and severity of crime has declined over the past decade.
Julie Carmichael, Toews’ spokeswoman, said Tuesday while the government believes “core” police functions should remain the domain of Crown employees, it is open to making better use of civilian staff and partnering with community organizations and the private sector.
Guindon said Tuesday that he sees no reason why, at the scene of crime, there sometimes needs to be officers manning the yellow police tape.
The officers would much rather be doing something else, and they’re getting paid “premium dollars” to be there, he said.
“This fits perfectly with private security. That’s what we do, that’s one of our core expertise,” Guindon said.
Guindon said his company has identified several dozen “non-core” policing duties that private guards could take over, including evidence custody, photo radar operation, non-criminal fingerprinting, traffic control, and prisoner monitoring and transportation.
According to background materials provided by Commissionaires staff, the Halifax Regional Police employs about 38 Commissionaires full-time to do criminal record checks, transcribe and enter offender information into a police database, and perform fingerprint services.
In several municipalities, Commissionaires are working as parking or bylaw enforcement officers.
Stamatakis acknowledged that there are certain lower-level tasks that fully-trained officers could probably pass off to lesser-trained officers or civilian employees within a police agency.
But he expressed concerns about handing off those duties to outsiders who have limited training, who may not have a history with the agency and who are often transient.
Stamatakis suggested private security representatives were “misleading” MPs Tuesday in their characterization of “non-core” policing duties.
Officers securing a crime scene aren’t just guarding the yellow tape, they’re protecting the investigators who are working within the crime scene’s boundaries, he said.
Those who work the front desks similarly carry heavy responsibilities since they are often the first point of contact for a member of the public who wants to lodge a complaint or provide information about a crime.
Stamatakis also said there is currently no universal oversight of private security companies, and regulations over training and licensing vary from province to province.
Guindon acknowledged Tuesday in his testimony that oversight of the private security industry is “not as comprehensive as I’d like,” but he said there have been a number of improvements, and those changes have produced better guards.
“We have changed, we have evolved,” he said.
Guindon noted that his company currently employs about 8,000 military and RCMP veterans whose skills are a “strong fit” with the needs of police agencies, though he stressed that they’re not looking to replace frontline officers.
“Another barrier, I’ll be very honest with you, is certainly police associations who will see us as a threat because instead of thinking of us being a complement to the police service agencies, they see us as taking jobs away from them. This is not the intention at all of private security,” Guindon said.
“We’re not police officers. We will never be police officers.”
Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: Douglas Quan
No comments:
Post a Comment