Amid growing public debate over crime and public safety in Vancouver, police are raising concerns about the number of calls to their non-emergency line going unanswered.
According to a report submitted to the Vancouver Police Board last week, more than four in 10 calls to the VPD non-emergency line in the first quarter of this year were abandoned. That’s up from 24.7 per cent in the same period last year.
For the entire year of 2021, about 88,000 calls were abandoned.
“(Those are) calls that we could have responded to that people either just hung up because they were frustrated or they went unanswered,” VPD spokesperson Tania Visintin told Global News.
“It does affect us, it affects our ability to provide service to residents of the city, those that are in crisis, and it affects the way we investigate crimes.”
The 911 and police non-emergency lines are not staffed by police and are managed by third-party agency E-Comm, which is owned by a consortium of municipalities and first responder agencies.
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In a statement, a spokesperson for E-Comm said underfunding and understaffing have led to long wait times for callers.
E-Comm also said it is seeing record call volumes coupled with increasingly complex calls while it grapples with staff going on stress leave and recruiting challenges.
“These ongoing issues, especially when combined with unprecedented pressures from COVID-19 and an increasing number of natural disasters, are contributing to extended wait times on police non-emergency lines; sometimes in excess of 120 minutes for Lower Mainland agencies (including the Vancouver Police Department),” the statement read.
“Heading into the busier summer months, it is unlikely police non-emergency wait times will decrease, as 9-1-1 call volumes keep rising and our limited pool of call takers must focus on answering urgent calls for help on the emergency lines.”
Speaking to the police board on Thursday, Vancouver Police Chief Adam Palmer said something needs to change.
“It’s unacceptable by any standards,” Palmer said.
“When people are calling the non-emergency number they’re sometimes having to wait a couple of hours. Can you imagine that you have to wait a couple of hours for somebody to pick up the phone when you’re calling the police?”
In addition to affecting the VPD’s ability to investigate crimes, Palmer said the high number of abandoned calls is also skewing the city’s crime statistics as potential crimes go unreported.
VPD crime statistics showed property crime down in all areas of the city in 2021, but Palmer said that figure is “artificially low,” given that 88,000 calls to the non-emergency line were abandoned that year.
E-Comm says it is working to address its long-term funding issues, but that in the meantime it is exploring new call-handling models and “innovative ways” to recruit and retain staff.
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