Vancouver police say 'investments in public safety' are driving down crime rates

Vancouver Police Chief Adam Palmer and Mayor Ken Sim arrive for a news conference in Vancouver, on Feb. 5, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

With Vancouver poised to set its 2025 budget, top police brass are touting a year-over-year decrease in crime as evidence that increased funding for the department under Mayor Ken Sim and his council is paying off.

But research suggests the relationship between police budgets and crime rates isn’t quite that simple.

A draft budget is coming to council this week, proposing a $10.1 million increase to the Vancouver Police Department's budget – bringing the total to just over $421.45 million, representing a property tax increase of 0.85 per cent.

"That is not an adequate increase to meet the demands that we're facing in the department," Chief Const. Adam Palmer told the police board at a meeting last month.

"They're looking at more of a 'keep the lights on' type budget, whereas we have things that we do have to address that are significantly important."

'Investments in public safety'

The police, after getting the board's approval last month, will be asking for an increase of $22.8 million – more than twice what city staff have recommended, for a total of $434.15 million which works out to a property tax increase of 1.9 per cent.

Palmer cited "investments in public safety" as having an impact on crime, based on a comparison between the first three quarters of 2023 and the same time period in 2024. The data, which Palmer summarized for the board, showed a 6.6 per cent decrease in violent crime, a 10.7 per cent decrease in property crime, and a 7.9 per cent decrease in total crime.

"We're driving them down and we're holding them down," Palmer said, referring to crime rates.

On social media, the department clapped back at a critic of the ever-increasing budget using similar language, citing the same data.

"Investments from Vancouver city council have helped VPD hire more officers so we can better serve the community. While there’s more work to do, the latest crime stats confirm that we’re making a big difference," a post on X said.

Deputy Chief Howard Chow, in a social media post this weekend, echoed the claim.

"Investments in public safety are paying off, crime trending down," he wrote on X.

But even the report the statistics are being drawn from suggests crime rates are impacted by factors completely outside of the department's control – such as the weather.

"Seasonality is an observable effect whereby the time of year effects the level of an activity. For example, during the winter months when fewer people are outside, there is typically less violent crime due to fewer potential victims being around when compared to the summer months," it says.

A report on the Crime Severity Index in Vancouver for 2023, also presented to the board last month, notes that the rate "decreased substantially" at the height of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Notably, that report also says data and statistics don't capture the totality or complexity of crime in Vancouver.

Police budgets and crime rates

Research on the relationship between police budgets and crime rates in Canada is scant, but a study published earlier this year broke ground by looking at 20 of the country's largest cities from 2010 to 2021.

The study titled Police Funding and Crime Rates in 20 of Canada's Largest Municipalities: A Longitudinal Study found that Vancouver spent the most per capita on policing of any of the cities – at $495.84. This amount was significantly higher than the mean of $342.28 and more than double that of the lowest per capita spend, which was Quebec City at $217.05. Those figures were from 2019, prior to the investments being heralded by the VPD.

Melanie Seabrook, the lead researcher, summarized a key finding in an interview with CTV News.

"We did not find a consistent correlation between police funding and crime rates across the 20 municipalities," she said.

"It's not a clear-cut relationship. This assumption that increasing police budgets will lead to a reduction in crime rates is not necessarily based in the evidence. There are a lot of different factors that go into producing crime and a lot of different ways that crime can be prevented effectively, and a lot of those don't involve police services."

Seabrook also says short-term, year-over-year comparisons aren't particularly illustrative of what relationship – if any – there is between police funding and crime rates.

"You really can't tell what is necessarily causing a drop in crime by looking at those percentages. It's much more robust to look at trends over long periods of time," she said.

While the study did obtain data on overall spending, a lack of detailed budget information meant the study could not compare and contrast how public dollars are allocated – frustrating attempts at a more in-depth analysis, and obscuring details of how taxpayer dollars are spent form the public.

"It's just really a big barrier in terms of transparency," Seabrook said.

"Data on police budgets are notoriously difficult to access in Canada, thwarting research into even the most rudimentary questions about how governments spend money in the pursuit of public safety," the study's final report said.

The City of Vancouver, before drafting the budget, surveyed residents and businesses about priorities. Asked to rank what the city should spend its money on, policing was not listed as a stand-alone option – making it difficult to gauge public sentiment on the municipality's largest annual expenditure.

Asked an open-ended question about what services and spending should be cut or reduced, decreasing the police budget was suggested by 12 per cent of individual respondents and 11 per cent of businesses – putting it in the top spot.

The draft budget comes to council Tuesday.