Writing in the Public Sector Digest, Macdonald-Laurier Institute author Christian Leuprecht argues that cutting police costs will require a greater focus on strategic investment in community safety priorities.
Leuprecht recommends pooling the funds police receive into a larger umbrella umbrella organization. This group would then allocate the money to the agency best suited to achieving a specific community safety objective.
“Requests for budget increases should demonstrate social investment to optimize strategic effect, rather than, say, merely justified as a function of ongoing operational expenditures, such as salary increases”, writes Leuprecht.
Earlier this year, Leuprecht authored a paper for MLI on how to rein in growing police costs. “The Blue Line or the Bottom Line of Police Services in Canada: Arresting runaway costs” argues that Canadians are not getting good value for the money they spend on police services.
To read Leuprecht’s Public Sector Digest column on police costs, click here.
