Angry in the Great White North

From the Toronto Star:

Premier Dalton McGuinty, speaking in Banff, Alta., said the gun violence prompted his government to keep an election promise to put 1,000 more police officers to work at a cost of $37 million. At least 150 are destined for Toronto.

Putting aside the strings attached to the plan, I hope someone has given some thought to the problem with simply hiring more police.

Imagine you have a pool of 500 applicants each year. Let's also say that you have 180 spots available. That means you have the ability to set the selection criteria to eliminate all but the top 40% of the applicants (you want a bit of extra for those who decline the offer).

Now you want to hire 150 more cops. Does this include a concerted effort to increase the size of the hiring pool? Somehow I doubt it; certainly no mention has been made of it. So now you go from accepting only the top 40%, to rejecting only the bottom 30%.

How much will this impact the quality, physical and psychological, of the police in the streets? Already we have seen in the Jama Jama case an example of police misconduct that was prosecuted, followed by further unprofessional behaviour that apparently had no repercussions. That means the quality of officer in Toronto is not as good as it could be, and is likely to get worse under this new program.

Politically, being able to show voters a simple graphic of the number of new cops hired is very appealing. But with the stresses of modern urban policing getting greater, and the added challenges posed by the increased violence in Toronto, simply throwing bodies in uniform on the streets might exacerbate the problem.

Here's hoping the plan is a bit more sophisticated than that.