Victoria police need to hire six to eight new officers every year for the next three years to replace what Manak calls a significant number of retiring and departing officers. The department, which has 220 officers out of a potential 222 on staff, hired nine new members last year and 21 in 2005. The situation is even more dire for the Vancouver police, which needs to hire 100 new officers just to maintain current staffing levels.
The problem is that the labour pool is shrinking, and prospective candidates are being lured into high-paying jobs in areas such as the booming construction industry, say police.
Victoria police received 163 resumés last year, a dramatic drop from 621 in 2003.
"The pool of candidates that we choose from is shrinking and that's causing me great concern," Manak said.
"Our standard is so high that many people don't make it through. We may have to spend more money to recruit the right candidates."
Manak said the department won't lower its standards - if it can't fill all its vacancies with qualified candidates, it will run at less than full strength.
Saanich police numbers are similar, said Insp. Rob McColl, who runs the staff-development division and whose 147-officer department will need to replace six officers retiring in 2008.
http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=ae4715ca-c4b5-42b9-80f9-f435ac9a4ced&k=7560
[Proofreader’s note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on October 2, 2007]
Note: http://www.canada.com/v...
Police Forces In Staffing 'crisis'
Posted on Monday, October 01 at 11:46 by AnonymousContributed By
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Perhaps the problem is that being a police officer is no longer seen as being the credible occupation it once was. It's like joining the military, where you used to expect to be defending the nation, now your just a tool for some behind the scenes puppet master.
inside the force one has to wonder how low they'd have to go to "lower" their
standards.
Gone are the days of approaching your local officer and asking for help
finding your puppy and expecting a big friendly helping hand. They look so
intimidating just in the way they dress that they are not someone you feel is
protecting you they're someone afraid of you.
Astrologically, Pluto is entering the sign of Capricorn and we can all expect
our institutions such as government, security forces, economic foundations,
the very things we have relied on for structure, to start crumbling beneath us.
I for one see this as a good thing, as we need to rethink our values, then
rebuild according to those values. We have been trying to evolve using an
outdated infrastructure.
Even though I see this as a good thing, I expect things to get messy
enroute.
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"The most sustainable product is the one you never bought in the first place."
Alex Steffan
Here's an example: Someone breaks into my home and I am not allowed to use force to deal with them. By the time the police show up I'm dead and the perp is long gone. Very nice...
4Canada, this (above) is the messiness I see
Chris Harder the police brotherhood mentality knows no boarders on last-nights 11 o’clock news there was a segment where a passenger on a BC ferry was “taken down” by a West Vancouver cop for non payment of fare
The thing was he did buy a ticket on board
I have NO respect for any police of the day and their training is to see EVERYONE as a suspect in yet to be committed criminal activity
---
"When I tell the truth, it is not for the sake of convincing those who do not know it, but for the sake of defending those that do."
William Blake
Bang on.
Even worse, we recently saw masked police officers dressed up like violent protesters trying to give their comrades a reason to beat up (and possibly even shoot at) peaceful protesters.
What does the police force do? Why protect them. And what does "our" government do? Why protect them.
Will I encourage anyone to join up? FORGET IT!
<br />
"Kelowna cancels next year's Wakefest"<br />
<a href="http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2007/10/02/bc-wakefestcancelled.html">http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2007/10/02/bc-wakefestcancelled.html</a><br />
<br />
"We had to send police resources into a very large crowd of intoxicated persons and extract the individuals from the centre of the crowd. While our officers were doing this, there were other persons pushing on the fence and chanting 'riot!,'" he said."<br />
<br />
They just *had* to do this??? Why, what for?<br />
<br />
I know what I'm talking about because I was a fist hand witness to the 1994 "riot" in Vancouver. I'm happy to say there was absolutely NO RIOT until the police suddenly showed up out of nowhere and intentionally started one. Before that, there were a lot of people peacefully milling about with not much to do, and I was among them, just there out of curiosity and not once did I feel threatened by anyone until the police showed up. I stuck around out of curiosity, and among the crowd of curious on-lookers I saw children, an elderly couple, an old man, a guy in a wheel chair, many ordinary folks wondering just WTF was all the commotion about - all of them an apparent threat to the heavily padded police officers who were dressed up like Darth Vader. Here we were just looking at the needless mess courtesy of our "tax" dollars, when suddenly Darth Vader decided the guy in the wheel chair was way too menacing so he shot a canister of tear gas at the peaceful on-lookers. That pissed off one of the guys in the crowd, who wrapped some cloth around his face and threw the canister back at Darth. Right in the thick of the so-called riot, I did not once feel threatened by anyone in the crowd, my only concern was getting shot or tear gassed by the police! What did the news media report? They repeatedly broadcast a single event where someone did a stupid stunt, that was it, that was the entire excuse given for the need to send in the troops. It was indeed a pathetic sight, and it was an eye opener for me.<br />