The Terrace RCMP detchment is on its way to recovering from an officer shortage that has hampered its ability to provide specialized services.
From an officer vacancy rate hovering at times in the 30 per cent range over the past several years, the rate has improved to 20 per cent.
Detachment commanding officer Inspector Terry Gillisepie says the rate could be further reduced to 10 per cent by the middle of the year.
“We don’t lose anyone until September so I don’t want to jinx myself, but we’re actually looking good for the summer,” Gillespie told city council March 25.
The improved vacancy rate means the detachment has been able to revive its crime reduction unit which primarily works in and around the downtown core and the detachment has filled its Indigenous policing position. Going into April, Gillespie also hopes to fill the vacant community policing position.
Officers were pulled from those positions and transferred to fill other vacancies.
The Terrace detachment has an authorized complement of 31 officers with the city budgeting for 28 positions, Gillespie said. That’s due to historical normal vacancy patterns.
There are an additional eight officer positions assigned to Thornhill and surrounding rural areas.
Although there are Thornhill and provincial positions allocated for budget purposes, officers go where needed.
The above-described officers are general duty and do not include other RCMP units in Terrace such as the highway patrol or forensic services.
Gillespie credited the arrival of cadet officers just graduating from the force’s training depot in Regina as helping to bolster numbers.
One of the cadet officers arrived in late March, another is coming mid-April and two more in May, he said.
These officers spend two months of a six-month training period in the same vehicle with a training officer and then four months in their own vehicle but still under supervision.
“(It’s) six months to be a fully-fledged member but by two months they are in their own vehicle taking separate calls from their field trainer,” Gilliespie said.
Gillespie noted that going into the end of the fiscal year as of March 31, overtime was over-budget.
Two-wheeled law enforcement
Bike police patrols could be making a return to Terrace provided the detachment receives an $80,000 grant from a special RCMP program.
The plan is to buy four bikes and train upward of half of the detachment’s patrol officers, Gillespie said.
Cycling officers would then concentrate on high-crime areas.
This would be at least the second time in recent decades the detachment has placed officers on bicycles to more effectively patrol downtown and adjacent areas.
The grant would also provide overtime pay to increase foot patrols in what Gillespie described as “high chronic social offence” areas.
These patrols would be conducted by the newly-revived crime reduction unit. It has two members now and the goal is to increase it to five as more officers arrive.
…. and stay out
A program that bars repeat violent offers from the city, Thornhill and surrounding area is working well, Gillespie said.
Formed by the provincial government last year, Terrace is one of 13 hubs around the province where the police work with probation officers and Crown prosecutors in the program called the Repeat Violent Offending Intervention Initiative.
“Terrace has had eight people prioritized under the program since its inception and of those eight we’ve gotten five either remanded to the Prince George Regional Correctional Centre or kicked out of the community on conditions not to be in Terrace,” Gillespie told council.
He said those barred are typically people who do not live in Terrace, but come to the city to commit crimes.
“They don’t have support networks here,” Gillespie added.
“They don’t have a plan for how they’re going to be able to live a crime-free lifestyle in Terrace. And so usually they also have victims of violent crime in the community that the courts are looking to protect.”
The detachment is also continuing its policy of writing bail comments ahead of time for the city’s more prolific offenders.
That way, when a person is arrested and brought before a judge, the judge has a full record of the person’s criminal history. The hope is that the person is then kept in custody pending a trial or other resolution.