Amid rising crime rates and calls from some to “defund the police” a new paper suggests an alternative solution to help manage the swelling costs of policing: outsource non-core police tasks to licensed security professionals.
“In fact, only 10 percent of the tasks officers carry out are highly demanding of all of these skills. An analysis conducted over thirty years in British Columbia revealed that officers spend 40 percent of their time on report writing and other administrative tasks.”
Non-core tasks also include fingerprinting, security clearances, funeral escorts, guard duty, dispatching police vehicles, and event patrol. These are examples of “mission creep,” the paper said, where demands on officers to take on roles in non-criminal areas expanded over time.
But the authors argue that if licensed security professionals can be entrusted to take on the non-core tasks, it can ease budgetary pressures and help police forces increase their operational efficiency, thereby reducing crime and improving job satisfaction among officers.
“According to our calculations, we could reduce Quebec police forces’ annual operating expenditures by between 17 percent and 20 percent, which represents savings of between $525 million and $615 million per year,” Wittevrongel said.
“A similar calculation for Alberta finds between 11 percent and 14 percent in reduced annual operating expenditures, representing savings of between $171 million and $225 million per year.”
These savings could be used to reduce provincial deficits or improve core police services, she added.
“Forces are improving the service in some areas (such as protective services) and save money in others,” HMIC stated.
“Savings, particularly those in non-front line functions, assist forces in protecting their front line service.”
The paper added that with the offloading of non-core tasks and the curtailing of mission creep, officers are motivated to do their job well.
“The job satisfaction of police officers can only improve as they focus more on the tasks for which they were trained,” Wittevrongel said.