Hamilton Police Chief Reduces Budget Request

Here's a Spec column from Andrew Dreschel with some news on the 2013 Hamilton Police budget:

"Police Chief Glenn De Caire has lowered his controversial budget request.
Instead of asking for a 5.25 per cent increase for 2013, the chief has cut it to 4.75 per cent.
That drops his total hike to $6.4 million, down about $679,000 from his original $7.1-million request.
The vast bulk of the decrease comes from phasing in the hiring of 20 new officers to spread the financial impact between 2013 and 2014."

I continue to question why these new hires are needed with decreasing crime rates in Hamilton, at least partially due to aging demographics. Especially how expensive pay, benefits and pensions are for regular constables.

I also question the $600K horse unit and it looks like councilor Terry Whitehead does too:

"Whitehead thinks a better solution is for the chief to scrutinize some operational decisions, including the effectiveness of the action teams and horse unit."

Here's an interesting post on the blog Marginal Revolution suggesting doubling the number of police officers in the US. I'm not sure the arguments apply to Canada.