The interesting thing about reading and watching the reporting on the Abbotsford town hall meeting was not what speakers such as Abbotsford’s Chief Constable Bob Rich or Ed Schellenberg’s brother-in-law Steve Brown had to say, nor the comments and statements from the public – it has been said before in other forums on crime and will be repeated again and again at future public forums on crime, often by the same people.

When boiled down the refrain from speaker after speaker was – more, more, more, more, more, more ……

The 800 pound gorilla that only one group raised and that everyone else ignored and/or failed to address, the 800 pound gorilla that renders all comments, statements and calls for action moot without it being addressed, is $$$$$$$. How are we going to pay for the more, more, more, more, more, more ……?

During Abbotsford’s budget process for the coming fiscal year a fiscal reality facing the City of Abbotsford is that leaving the funding for the Abbotsford Police Department (APD) at the same level as last year would necessitate cuts to the APD.

In order to just maintain the APD at the same level of operations as this year’s level will require an increase in the APD budget. Increasing the activities of the APD would require an even larger increase to the APD’s budget.

Increases to the APD budget are not measured in just the increased in property taxes; it is important to consider the costs to other city services that are forgone or cut to fund the APD budget appetite for yearly funding increases.

The Abbotsford Fire Department is undermanned for a city the size of Abbotsford. Yet the hiring of new firefighters is on indefinite hold because of the voracious appetite the APD (and the other lower mainland police departments) have for increases in funding.

Recall that in Vancouver, and other metro Vancouver cities, cuts were made to the staff and equipment of fire departments in order to have money to meet increase police funding needs.

At what point will the need to decrease the investment in fire departments to fund increases to police departments result in significant increases in fire losses and the cost of fire insurance?

It is not just the fire departments; cuts will need to be made across the board on city services to avoid large property tax increases – all to meet the increasingly voracious appetite of police services.

Cuts that will be required year after year as police costs devour an ever increasing percentage of city budgets.

And police costs are the cheap part.

Faster court processes, more trials, less plea bargains and more incarceration – these all require significant increases in resources both provincially and federally – resources that come at substantial cost.

The federal conservatives speak of spending $9 BILLION to build new prisons. And building the prisons is the cheap part. Operating the prisons is the costly part of increasing the prison space in the country, requiring as it will year after year after year of increasing expenditures.

Interestingly, at a time the federal Conservatives are speaking of the need to incarcerate ever increasing numbers of people, the conservative government has made cuts to the current years Corrections Canada’s budget. If the government finds it necessary to reduce the costs associated with the current levels of incarceration – just how do they propose to fund the ever increasing costs associated with increasing levels of incarceration?

The sizable funding increases needed to pay for substantial increases in incarceration levels have to be paid for somehow.

How will you choose to pay for increasing levels of incarceration – large tax increases to provide the $billions needed to fund this course of action OR do we fund the $billions needed through major cuts to healthcare and other programs?

Realistically healthcare and to a lesser degree education, are the only budget areas with sufficient funds to begin to offset the costs of a policy of incarcerate, incarcerate, incarcerate. Indeed, given that healthcare costs are consuming an ever increasing percentage of provincial budgets (threatening, at least mathematically, to require 100% of provincial budgets) and that a policy of ever increasing levels of incarceration will consume ever increasing levels of future provincial and federal budgets (unless taxpayers are willing to pay annual tax increases to cover the costs of incarceration) then at some point a decision, a choice, will be required between funding healthcare or funding the incarceration of increasing numbers of people.

“Those who fail to learn from the mistakes of their predecessors are destined to repeat them.” George Santayana

The only thing that kept the state of California from bankruptcy was the fact it was a government. The main driver of California’s budgetary debacle was its policy of incarceration, incarceration, incarceration and the prohibitive costs associated with that policy. Addressing California’s budget crisis is why governor Schwarzenegger proposed legalizing marijuana.

The state of New York recognized and publically acknowledged it too was on a path where, without massive tax increases, all the state’s budget would soon be spent on the policy of incarcerate, incarcerate, and incarcerate. New York State chose to back away from incarceration in order to avoid a financial/budgetary disaster.

Smaller states had already found that they could not afford to pursue a policy of incarceration, incarceration, incarceration and abandoned policies that require ever increasing levels of incarceration.

It would be … to be blunt … STUPID to waste resources, in particular the resource of time, to follow a policy that simple mathematics and results of following the policy in other political jurisdictions demonstrate to be economically unfeasible to the point of budgetary meltdown.

Abbotsford, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada cannot afford the massive waste of resources that being unwilling to learn from the experience of other jurisdictions who pursued policies of incarcerate, incarcerate, incarcerate – simply because they do not want to hear evidence that makes clear that giving into the desire for vengeance by incarcerating more and more people for longer and longer periods of time is financial and budgetary suicide.

We simply cannot afford to act like children, refusing to acknowledge what the cost of pursuing a policy of incarceration will be because we do not want to hear anything that would interfere with doing what we want to do – lock ever increasing numbers of people up.

Unless of course increased taxes, decreased healthcare and other services while dealing with continued increases in mental health, addiction and the crime associated with these health/social issues is what citizens and politicians are seeking to achieve?

The truth, unpalatable as it may be to many, is that as a society we lack the resources to continue to pursue policies that are ineffective simply because they are based on what people believe to be, or want to be, true.

Truthfully, we can no longer afford to pursue policies that are ineffectual period; our decreasing resources dictate pursuing policies based on effectiveness not on palatability or “but I want to”.