Criminals can be creative, collaborative and well-organized when it comes to orchestrating crimes but law enforcement agencies aren't using the same talents to fight them, says Stephen Owen, director of UVic's Institute for Dispute Resolution.
"We were quite surprised at how fragmented the criminal intelligence system is and at the magnitude of organized crime," says Owen, who chaired a review committee that recommended scrapping the province's existing organized crime-fighting unit. "We were even more surprised at how little the Co-ordinated Law Enforcement Unit (CLEU) and other law enforcement agencies were able to tell us about it."
Owen says the province's law enforcement agencies lack co-operation and dislike sharing information and resources in joint operations. "They [the agencies] tend to remain structured like organized crime used to be."
As a result of the recommendations of Owen's panel, provincial Attorney-General Ujjal Dosanjh is disbanding CLEU and creating a new police agency to fight organized crime. A board of directors for the new agency will be established soon. "If this model works, B.C. will be in the forefront of criminal intelligence operations in the country," says Owen.
The other members of the review panel were Bob Stewart, former Vancouver
Police chief, and Richard Bergman, a 36-year veteran of the RCMP, whose
appointments included deputy commissioner, national police services. Owen
is a former deputy attorney general and ombudsman of B.C.