Distribution of police force: Does it affect crimes reported

The stats of 2009 and 2010 show the rate of police officers recruited for every 100,000 population varying with different provinces.

The largest increase in police officer strength were reported in Saskatchewan (8%) followed by two provinces with the same rate (7%): British Columbia and Alberta. Police strength has increased from the last year in all provinces except Yukon. In 2009, 122 police officers were appointed in Yukon which was reduced by 1 officer in 2010 (121).

Provinces which had the highest rate of police officers per 100,000 populations were Saskatchewan, British Columbia, Alberta and Nunavut. On the contrary, 7 provinces had the same rate or close to the national average rate.

According to the stats, Ontario and Northwest Territories had an increase rate of 3% which is equal to the national average.

It is noticeable that the increase of police officers does not co-relate to the crime reported. Saskatchewan had the highest rate of police officers but Nunavut reported the highest crime rate (392). Hence the police force is not distributed according to the number and severity of crimes reported.

Nunavut (336.9) and Northwest Territories (323.3) with the most severe crimes had an increase of police officers at the rate of 7% and 3% respectively. It is evident that Nunavut needs more police officers as the province was reported as the second highest crimes reported which had an increase of only 6 police officers. Even after the increase rate of police officers in Nunavut (6%) was double to the national average, still needs more police force to tackle the crimes reported.

Being the bigger provinces, Nunavut and Northwest Territories had the less police strength.

Few other issues with the distribution of police force are:

·           Ontario had the highest number of police strength (803) and the least crime (68.9) reported.

·           British Columbia with the second highest number of police strength (575) had 110.3 crimes reported which is double to Ontario.

·           Quebec had an increase of 54 police officers with 82 crimes reported.

·           Nova Scotia with 35 police officers increase had almost the number of crimes (83.9) reported.

Among all 13 provinces, Yukon and Prince Edward Island had the lowest rates of police strength, but the crimes reported shows there is a serious imbalance in the police distribution across provinces. 

It is an issue to be thought of and it is time that Government consider to track the province with more crimes reported and increase the police force accordingly than based on population.