The Pickton Case Analysis

The police is the most visible representation of the law, they are ever present in every corner of our community to deter crime from occurring. Looking at the lower mainland, one may notice the many divisions of districts and may question whether there is enough personnel in the police force to effectively govern the vast landscape. However, with the lower mainland being quite extensive and diverse, the question still remains if there is a need to create one cohesive unit to provide ample service to the public or remain with the model of policing that is employed now. Therefore, this paper will analyze the positive and negative aspects of regionalization of the police services in the lower mainland and its relationship with Canada’s shift towards
“Following Pickton’s conviction for murder in only six of these cases, the government of British Columbia conducted a public inquiry into police failures to investigate the disappearances in a timely manner” (Craig, 2014,pg. 4). This is mainly due to the failures of the RCMP and other municipalities on the fact that these organizations were blindsided by a serial killer who has been preying on women in the downtown eastside. With that said the missing women inquiry led by inquiry commissioner Wally Oppal outlined the pitfalls of the police in this investigation; “the police failed to take reports on missing women and act on them, the police were unable to identify the causes of these disappearances which posed significant risks to the public, there was a lack of investigative techniques employed and case management, and the police failed to co-ordinate with other agencies which was the most critical failure” (Oppal, 2012,
Being too centralized may pose conflict with “managing competing demands, this is often an issue police officers face today as everyone from the media, superiors, chief, personnel has different perceptions/expectations on how policing should progress (Duxbury, 2015 pg.374). Every area is different in terms of its needs and expectations. Therefore by establishing one police force to tailor the needs of all of the lower mainland is difficult. Since the lower mainland is quite diverse it is unlikely that a small city such as Port Moody be treated the same as a large urban city such as Vancouver. Furthermore, “The largest RCMP municipal police detachment is in the municipality of Surrey. The detachment has 416 officers in contrast to Pitt Meadows and White Rock detachments that have only 17 and 23 officers” (Wood, 2007, pg.286). Smaller services may not have a fair tradeoff, these services will most likely lose the majority of their resources to balance out the inefficiencies of the larger