London, Ont., is the third most dangerous city in the province with one of the least staffed police forces. That’s according to police chief Thai Truong who shared recent crime data during budget presentations with the London Police Service Board earlier this week.
The new proposed multi-year budget, presented to the public on Monday, is seeking just over $146 million in 2024, an 11.6 per cent increase over 2023.
The four-year budget comes with a total price tag of $639 million.
According to the proposal, “capital forecasts for 2028-2033 require $57.4M over six years to maintain existing operations, infrastructure and lifecycle replacement of capital items.”
“The current state of safety in this city is completely unacceptable,” Truong told police board members on Monday.
Second to Ottawa, London has the most understaffed police service per capita for single-tier municipalities.
“Amongst the big 12 police services in the big 12 cities in Ontario, London is the third highest in the crime severity index,” he said.
“In other words, London is the third most dangerous city amongst the big 12.”
With the provincial average at 58.5 per cent in 2022, the Forest City stood at 79.7 per cent, ranking behind Sudbury (82.8 per cent) and Windsor (83.8 per cent). But despite ranking in at number one on the crime severity index, Windsor had the most authorized police officers per 100,000 people.
The national average on the crime severity index was 78.1 per cent last year.
In further detailing the current state of safety in the city, Truong added that London holds one of the lowest investigative clearance rates in the province, with officer workload ranging in at one of the highest and police response times amongst the worst.
He also stressed that there has been a “significant increase” in reported shootings across the city and motor vehicle-related deaths on city streets are at an “all-time high.”
“The most shootings ever in the city were in 2021 with 28 and today we’re at 25,” he said. “There has also been a 90 per cent increase (from 2022) of fatal motor vehicle collisions on our roads. … We’re at 19 deaths on our roads today, (and) all last year, we had 10.
“This data set shows on average, our officers are laying more criminal code charges than almost every other police service in Ontario with a population greater than 100,000,” Truong said.
On top of that, the police chief highlighted that London also has the most service delivery complaints in the province from citizens, behind only Ottawa and Toronto.
“The data set is affirming what the public is telling us,” he said. “Unfortunately, community trust has eroded because of our service delivery.”
With the intent of combatting and improving safety levels in the city, the proposal requests the hiring of 189 more positions, including 97 sworn officers and 92 civilian positions.
The police board unanimously approved the proposed budget. However, Mayor Josh Morgan said that it might be a challenge to sell the budget to city council.
“This is going to put significant upward pressure on a budget that is already going to be difficult and put city council in a position to have to choose between doing things that support this budget and doing other things in council strategic plan,” he said.
Morgan added that increased crime rates don’t necessarily create an environment for job creation and investment.
“I just want to be frank here that I’m going to support this, but I don’t want that not to mean that there isn’t going to be very difficult discussion with city council,” he said, highlighting the need for transparency with the community.
“I would expect that there would be a serious discussion about the investments being made if they’re not actually leading to the types of results that Londoners want to see,” he said.
“We’ve heard what they’ve said. Responding to that and saying, ‘This is how much it’s going to cost,’ is a different discussion that we need to engage with Londoners on as well.”
The budget will be brought to council on Dec. 12.
Londoners will also be able to give their feedback until the end of January before a final decision is made in the new year.
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