PAGE 4, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1982, WHITBY FREE PRESS i I pw ni(Y Publi Volce of the County Town Michael lan Burgess, Publisher . Managing Editor , The only Whitby newspaper independently owned and operated by Whitby residents for Whitby residents.p shed every Wednesday by M.B.M. Publishing and Photography Inc. Phone 668-6111 ]'he Free Press Building, 31 Brock Street North, P.O. Box 206i Whitby, Ont. >0. Box 206. Whitby, Ont. Registration No. 5351 MICHAEL J. KNELL Community Editor MARJORIE A. BURGESS Advertising Manager Mailing Permit No. 460 Second Clase Mail Registration No. 5351 Region's guidelines fail to recognize need for adequate police protection Durham Regional Police Chief Jon Jenkins has reported that there was an 18 per cent increase in the number of crimes against persons in the Town of Whtby during 1981. This statistic is just one of many that indicated that Whitby's crime rate - for ail types of offences -has risen overthe 1980 leveis. Much of this Increase can be attributed flot only to our community's population growth, but to the general state of the economy as well. it is a documented fact that as the economy worsens, then the number of people turning to crime increases. What concerns this publication more than any- thing else is Durham Regional Councils attitude towards the police force's budget. The police force makes up a considerable por- tion of the region's annuai budget and each'year the financial pressure upon the region becomes greater. At last week's meeting of Durham Council, local politicians voted to impose a 12 per cent budget guldeline on the force's 1982 expenditures. This was two points lower than had been recommend- ed by council's senior staff members. We've got a long way to go before we hear the end of Clifford Robert Oison. In the end, the convicted child killer may have more impact on our system of criminal justice than a whole benchful of robed per- formers. And we could over-react. I don't want to get into an argument about whether the police should have paid Oison to lead them to the bodies. But I think it would be a mistake to conclude that the police should never, ever pay criminais money. Recently, at Global, we carried a series on Oison, a profile of a kil- ler who has had a long and indecent interest in the law and capital punishment. We've managed to ob- tain a series of letters that Oison wrote from prison between 1976 and 1981 - letters which indicate that Oison may have thought about murder and carefully weighed the punishment if he were caught. There is some reason to believe that if the death penalty had been in force, Oison might have been deterred from his slaughter. I confess that while the issue was being debated in Parliament, I was an abolitionist. As a citi- zen, i didn't want to have blood on my hands, even indirectly, and I couldn't get past the fact that a wrongful execution is the ultimate, tragic mistake. I must confess, l'm no longer as certain about abolition as I once was, but I think it would be wrong if we ai- lowed the Oison case to stampede us back to the death penalty before we've weighed the statistical evidence a little longer. Sa far, that evidence sug- gests that the abolition of the death penalty has had no effect on the murder rate whatsoever. The number of Canadian murders, it's true, hit a record high of seven hundred and eleven in 1977, the year after abo- lition. But the murder rate dropped steadily in the next three years, to 593 in 1980. While it is true that the death penalty might have deterred a systematic and cold-blooded killer like Oison, there's some doubt that it would have deterred the most common kind of killer - the people who lose their tempers in arguments and quarrels. So, whatever we do, let's not go off haIf-cocked. That's not news, but that too is reality. Mayor Bob Attersley, who serves as one of the region's two representatives on the Durham Regional Police Commission, believes that there is no way that the force can live with a 12 per cent i norease. It is his contention that If the commission is forced to Ive with such an increase it may have to lay-off members of Its staff inciuding police of- f icers. This is something that the average Durham tax- payer and resident would fight with all vigor. Police protection is something that we ail demand and with rare exceptions take for granted. During the debate on the budget guidelines .it seemed to us that the councillors were taking police protection for granted. While one cannot, in ail hore sty, criticize their collective desire to cut costs and ep taxes down they do not seem to have any established set of priorities forexpending the valuable tax dollar. It is very rare that a councillor will ask "do we need this service or program at this time?" or "Is this something we can do without?" Most of the time they seem to be concerned with maintaining last year's level of service without questioning whether or not that level of service was needed or desired. Our regional councillors have yet to strike a list of priorities. With an 18 per cent increase in the level of crimes against persons in the Town of Whitby and similar, if slightly lower, increases across the region, police protection has to be the "number one" priority. This is not to say that the commission should be given whatever amount of money it requests in each year, but that this request should be looked at in terms of what is needed to provide adequate police protection. This publication would rather see money taken away from other less vital areas (le. Board of Edu- cation) so that police protection can be main- tai ned. After ail, surely it Is more important ta have a police officer out on patrol than it is ta buy more office machinery for some regional departments, or to have better educated being sent to jail. The burden on the property taxpayer is great and this publication is forever reminding our readership of this fact. However, we believe that one of the central issues In this budget process Is that councillors have not set their spending priorities. Believe it or not, this region has constructed a $9 million water plant in the Town of Newcastle that will be mothballed as soon as It is completed. On top of that, there is another $8 million water plant in the Town of Whitby that has been Idie for some years now. While not ail of this money came from the regional taxpayer it seems to us that the region made some fatal mistakes when it made those building decisions. That money could have been used to make necessary and needed improvements to our. police force, to our homes for the aged and to other val uable services. Not all of the blame can be fostered - on to Durham Regional Council, but they must bear the brunt of it. We honestly do not know how much money is needed to provide adequate police protection for Durham, but we do know that the current budget process will not determine that figure either. à .~ .~c~-~w~w*.~a1dN~è4g*4a.s ~a-6 ~ â 888a """""""' .Madwmmmbm-j