| Competency Frameworks and Job Analysis News Canada's border guards who are currently unarmed and have the right to walk off the job if they believe they are in danger, did so on Sunday. About 60 guards at several Canada-U.S. crossings in B.C. walked off the job after Homeland Security officials in the U.S. told the RCMP that a suspected killer from California, who should be considered armed and dangerous, might try to cross the Canadian border. Human Resources and Social Development Canada had been called in to assess whether the work environment is dangerous. The Conservative government has promised a 10-year program to arm the guards. There is ongoing debate in the policing community over whether the desire to raise recruiting standards can be realized at a time when departments are desperate for new officers to fill the thousands of openings for cops nationwide. Less than 5% of local police departments with more than 100 officers require four-year degrees, says Louis Mayo, executive director of the Police Association for College Education. Most departments give higher pay to recruits with four-year degrees, he says, but have avoided requiring recruits to have them for several reasons. Among them: concerns about recruiting enough minority officers in increasingly diverse urban areas, and fears that not enough college graduates would be attracted by police salaries. The median annual salary for patrol officers nationwide was about $45,200 in 2004, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Rookie cops usually make less. Departments have been reluctant to adopt stricter recruiting standards despite evidence suggesting that better-educated cops perform better due to the emphasis in jobs on dispute resolution. Manitoba is giving municipalities the power to employ special constables that can enforce certain provincial laws such as speeding. Judicial and municipal officials said the step, possibly a first in Canada, is meant to improve safety and enforcement in rural communities where police agencies are shorthanded. Winnipeg Beach became the first to sign on now that the legal framework is in place for municipalities to hire the bylaw enforcement officers and for them to enforce such laws. "We need the service as soon as possible," said Winnipeg Beach Mayor Don Pepe. "We've put six names forward for consideration." Mounties patrol his town, but their resources are stretched because they police a large zone. Special constables will be allowed to enforce sections of the Highway Traffic Act, Liquor Control Act and other statutes. Justice Minister Gord Mackintosh said RCMP will screen candidates. Municipalities or candidates will pay for training and other expenses. Officials were not able to provide cost estimates. Peacekeeping missions are using police units to keep the peace and save money. Historically, the need for soldiers during military operations is usually brief and the biggest component of peacekeeping activities is that of maintaining order. The UN has 27 FPUs (Formed Police Units) which contain 3,105 peacekeeping police. Each unit includes 125 police led by a UN police Commissioner and costs about $4.2 million a year to operate. Operations allow 80% of police personnel to be on the street. By comparison an equal number of UN peacekeeping troops cost $5 million dollars a year and allow only about half the troops to be on the street at any one time. When military operations require peacekeeping, policing units are most effective. There are also larger, and more expensive, police units, formed by the UN, NATO and the EU. The NATO MSUs (Multinational Specialized Units) have from 250 to 600 personnel each, and are more heavily armed than FPUs. They, like their UN equivalents, are SPUs (stability police units). The European Union has its IPUs (Integrated Police Units). These more heavily armed, and better paid, organizations are actually paramilitary, and are used to bridge the gap between the arrival of peacekeeping troops, and the deployment of FPUs for keeping things quiet until local police forces can be rebuilt. While the concept of peacekeeper police has been a successful one, it still depends on adequate training and leadership. As with poorly trained and led peacekeeping troops, ill-prepared cops can suffer from corruption and abuse of power problems. That, however, is a constant problem that does not take away from the superiority of the peacekeeping police concept. Mayor Thomas M. Menino, amid an outcry from Boston city councilors and community leaders, said yesterday that he will accept an offer from Governor Mitt Romney to loan state troopers to Boston for special operations this summer. Romney had offered the use of State Police as Boston's understaffed police force battles a wave of crime and heads into a summer that some fear will be the bloodiest in years. On Thursday, Menino said he had decided to refuse the help, largely because Boston's powerful police unions would oppose it. But the mayor came under a firestorm of criticism yesterday, with city councilors and residents of some of the city's hardest-hit areas accusing him of letting politics interfere with the well-being of the neighborhoods. Early yesterday, Menino had continued to defend his decision, saying during an interview with WBZ radio that, while he wanted to see more State Police on the highways, troopers should not be alongside Boston police officers in the city's neighborhoods. ``Working in the streets of Boston is much more difficult than working the highways," Menino said in the interview. ``So I want to use that offer of his to let them patrol those [highways] on a full-time basis, so we can concentrate the Boston police in the neighborhoods." But by late afternoon, he was considering other options. He said he was discussing a plan to integrate state troopers with special operations forces. The province's plan to hire 42 new traffic sheriffs has been derided by a non‑union association of provincial RCMP officers, who say police work should be left to the professionals. A spokesman for Solicitor General Harvey Cenaiko on Friday announced the new sheriffs ‑ who will be stationed on Alberta's most treacherous stretches of highway ‑ one month before the completion of a provincial traffic safety pilot project. "This is all a hiring process that we're going through right now," said Solicitor General's office spokesman Andy Weiler. "We'll probably have an official rollout sometime this fall." Provincial traffic enforcement officers have been using RCMP detachments for office space, but Weiler said that is also slated to change. But Staff Sgt. Bob Meredith, elected to speak on behalf of the RCMP's Staff Relations Representatives, said the special constables will compound detachments' work. "Our position on it is that traffic safety work is police work and it should be done by police officers," he said. "These people will go out encountering criminal activity on our highways. ... "Our concern is for public safety, for police safety." "RCMP can focus on more serious crimes," Weiler said. "This isn't about replacing the RCMP; this is about complementing them." Back Up Police are spending millions on interpreters instead of badly needed beat officers. Foreign murderers, a surge in migrant workers and large numbers of asylum seekers have been blamed by one of the highest spending forces, Cambridgeshire, for its rocketing translation bill. The force spent £715,000 on interpreting for foreign criminals in the last financial year – up 69 per cent on the previous 12 months. This is equivalent to 65 new recruits, who are paid £20,397 a year after basic training. Other rural forces including Essex, Hampshire, Hertfordshire and Surrey have each had to shell out hundreds of thousands of pounds on interpreters instead of putting more officers on the beat. Cambridgeshire Police said last night that they had to deal with an increasingly international population. While major cities have become used to relying on interpreters, small county forces have seen their budgets decimated by the new demands. Daily Express columnist and former Home Office minister Ann Widdecombe said: “If the Government could get control of the abuse of the asylum and immigration systems there would be less need for such services.” Back Up |
