CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. — Six new police officers will be joining Charlottetown Police Services.
City council voted 10-0 at its Dec. 11 regular meeting to approve money for six police on a three-month contract. This will run until the next city budget, and the council says it plans to carry the positions into the next fiscal year.
While Charlottetown Police Chief Brad MacConnell initially informed council his squad was short 10 officers, he told council this month the number was actually 29. This is based on the regional average for police strength, which is 229 officers per 100,000 residents, MacConnell told council.
Charlottetown had 161 officers per 100,000, which amounted to 69 actual officers in the city before the council voted to add more.
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Payment plan
No one on council argued against the need for more police, but some questioned how the city would pay.
Coun. Kevin Ramsay suggested more money for police will mean less money for public works projects and other city needs.
“Some of your streets may not get paved this year that you’re looking at or things along that line when we talk about budget.”
The police budget for 2023-24 is $12,452,466, the second biggest department after public works, which is $17,203,399. This equates to 16.1 and 22.2 per cent of the total budget, respectively.
Police chief
In an interview after the meeting, MacConnell said the new hires will be first-class constables.
Their contracts will run from January to March 2024 at a cost of $261,230, and the force will include them in its 2024-25 budget, he said.
The police union’s collective agreement shows first-class constables are set to make $107,485.97 in 2024 and $109,904.41 in 2025.
These additional officers will help with burnout in the force and allow police to take a proactive stance instead of being reactive, MacConnell said.
Beyond the need to ease the workload, SaltWire asked MacConnell what the force would do to show the new hires are making a difference in crime and calls to police.
“We look at our citizen surveys, and we look at our crime rates,” he said. “Right now we still enjoy a relatively good crime rate; we enjoy an incredibly low violent crime rate. The exercise is to keep those statistics, and we need the additional resources to keep pace with the high-quality policing and the expectations our citizens have.”
Mayor
Mayor Philip Brown also spoke to the media after the vote. Recent public meetings about safety have made it clear residents want more police, he said.
But a September 2023 survey of 500 Charlottetown residents found 93 per cent of locals feel safe in the city, with a breakdown of 63 per cent feeling very safe and 30 per cent somewhat safe.
Given this, SaltWire asked whether the city was preparing to spend millions of dollars on police that may not be wanted by all residents.
Brown, though, said he heard about the desire for more visible police throughout the 2022 election campaign, in all parts of the city.
“What’s the issue? Lack of police officers, lack of infrastructure. And that could also be said about our fire services,” he said.
SaltWire also asked Brown what evidence the city had that more police would help with crime.
He referred again to the public desire for more police.
“The feedback is, ‘More presence of police officers, more boots on the ground,’” he said. “It provides a sense of security.”
Regarding how the city will pay for millions in new police, Brown said, “We will have to find it.”
Criminologist
Calls to police and P.E.I.’s population have indeed both grown in recent years, while police strength has not kept pace.
But questions remain about what impact they will have on complaints and crime in Charlottetown.
Adding more cops does not mean the crime rate will fall or the public will be more safe, says St. Thomas University criminology professor Jean Savegeau.
There is no evidence the number of police officers changes the crime rate, he said in a Dec. 11 interview.
“Nationally, over the last … two, three decades, there’s been a variation between 180 to 200 police officers (per 100,000 resident), whatever scale is used. And I did run the numbers myself to see if there was a correlation, and there’s none. That did not correlate with the crime rate whatsoever.”
There is also no evidence that having more visible police presence acts as a deterrent or that pairing social workers with police is effective, he said.
Instead, funding for social services, housing, health and education are what have been proven to make a difference, he said.
Ultimately, it is the job of city hall and council to seek accountability from the police.
Logan MacLean is a municipal reporter with SaltWire in Prince Edward Island. He can be reached by email at logan.macLean@theguardian.pe.ca and followed on X @loganmaclean94.
