More violent crime and fewer officers: acting police chief hopes to recruit more police with city funding

With violent crime increasing in the city of London, Ont., the acting police chief said there's no question that there’s a need for more officers on the ground.

London police are overloaded and facing a severe staffing shortage, Trish McIntyre explained.

“With our call volume being so high and with violent crime being so high those drive up risk for our officers. The other piece that's alive and well is their safety,” she said. “We don’t have to look far from last year to see the number of police officer funerals and deaths. That was unprecedented.”

With approximately 900 members, both sworn and civilian, it's still not enough to keep up with the growing demand. This is why the London Police Service (LPS) plans to hire 52 more officers over the next 3 years.

London has 145 officers for every 100,000 citizens— the average ratio in Ontario is 181 per 100,000.

For the time being, “We’ve definitely ramped up recruiting initiatives,” McIntyre added.

“COVID-19 limited those [recruiting initiatives], so now that the world has opened back up we are definitely out at more recruiting events,” she said pointing to “London being a great place to work.”

McIntyre believes the shortage can be attributed to a complex number of reasons including a “change in landscape,” and a loss of interest in policing as a career in addition to some challenges that come with the job.

“When there are 200-300 calls in the cue you do your best to work through that. Then you come back tomorrow and there’s another 200-300 calls,” said Rick Robson with the London Police Association.

“It's a perpetual cycle - working, trying to get ahead and never getting ahead and it has a negative consequence on officers’ health and well-being,” he said, acknowledging that burnout amongst police officers is increasing.

However, McIntyre is confident hiring more police will allow the LPS to improve its response times and, hopefully, prevent the number of crimes.

“It will allow our offices to feel supported and really improve retention,” she said.

But in order to fund more recruits, the police will need funding from the city of London. It would cost the city $4 million to hire 20 more police officers and 4 support staff.

That funding request is expected to receive final approval during next week’s city council meeting.

“Publicly recognizing that we are understaffed and not having these dialogues where they continually challenge the budget and saying do we need these officers? The recognition that they’re accepting that is a big step forward,” Robson said.

 

— With files from CTV London’s Daryl Newcombe