Centre for Public Safety and Criminal Justice Research
Over the past thirty years, the public has increased their demands for police services which has contributed to RCMP detachments taking on additional responsibilities. At the same time, changes in policing technologies and Canadian case law have increased the number of steps and the amount of time it takes police to perform many of their … Read more
As any general duty police officer knows, taking a break while on duty, especially for a healthy meal, is not always an easy thing to do. In fact, it is not uncommon for general duty police officers to recall shifts in which they were so busy that they did not even have time to take … Read more
General duty police officers spend a significant amount of time in their patrol cars. In a recent study for 12 the Surrey RCMP on average, officers spent approximately half (49%) of each shift in their patrol car. Of the time in their patrol vehicles, members spent nearly half of that time driving (48%) and the … Read more
Good nutrition is important to staying healthy. This is especially important if your job requires you to be physically fit. Given their mandate, police officers must have a readiness to respond quickly and sometimes lastingly to extremely taxing physical situations (Anderson and Plecas, 2008; Anderson, Plecas, & Segger, 2001). Moreover, police work can be extremely … Read more
Domestic violence typically refers to physical, verbal, emotional, and/or psychological violence between intimate partners (Dutton, 2009; Johnson, 2006), and is a common societal phenomenon, affecting approximately one-third of women in their lifetime (Statistics Canada, 2009; Nathens, Kernic, Holt, & Rivara, 2004). Equally significant, recidivism among offenders is relatively common and often occurs soon after the … Read more
Since 2003, auto theft has decreased substantially across Canada (Wallace, 2003; Dauvergne and Turner, 2010). In fact, auto theft has had the largest rate of decline in police-reported crime trends with a decrease of 17,000 auto thefts from 2008 to 2009 (Dauvergne and Turner, 2010). Still, over the past decade, British Columbia, and in particular … Read more
This report describes the nature and extent of marihuana growing operations in Mission British Columbia. The report is based on an examination of operations coming to the attention of police over the 14 year period of January 01, 1997 to the end of 2010. Using the same methodology of the 2002 research conducted by Plecas … Read more
Transit crime and the fear of transit crime are two of the more under researched areas in the field of crime prevention (Poinster, 1996; Newton, Johnson, & Bowers, 2004; Loukaitou-Sideris and Fink, 2009). This is the case with respect to both the actual incidence of crime along transit corridors (Newton, 2004) and the public’s perception … Read more
The production of marihuana is a criminal activity that is very profitable for offenders and harmful to communities (Plecas, Diplock, & Garis, 2009). Growers in British Columbia commonly set up their operations indoors, in homes, and other buildings to avoid detection and to cultivate plants year round. Moreover, indoor buildings allow growers the opportunity to … Read more
Despite training to handle the operation of motor vehicles under a variety of road, weather, and situational conditions, a substantial proportion of police vehicles are involved in collisions on an annual basis (Becker, Zaloshnja, Levick, Li, & Miller, 2003; Lundalv, Philipson, & Sarre, 2010). This is not unexpected given that police officers typically spend half … Read more