Ep. 071: 21st Century Policing

Guest: Adam Palmer, Chief of Vancouver Police

"When Jim Chu retired he left the department in a very good place."

That is according to new Vancouver Police Chief Adam Palmer, who took on the top job in the spring of 2015. We sat down with him to talk about his vision for keeping Vancouver safe. He says, "I was fortunate to take over a department that's in a good situation."

Moving forward, the challenge is to stay on top of potential threats. Chief Palmer says the key to maintaining and improving safety is a complex and many faceted approach to crime prevention and enforcement. He points out, “The drop in crime over the last 10 years in Vancouver has been more dramatic than that in some other cities. And some of it is that proactive work. Also, our targeting of prolific offenders. But one thing that's really helped us in Vancouver is our very robust analytical capability. We have analysts, specially-trained civilians, that are providing data to the front-line officers to help make us more effective."

Chief Palmer says the same is true in anti-terrorism. "We have Vancouver police officers that are part of the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team. That's a joint-effort with the RCMP. We have VPD officers that work on that team dealing with any kind of national security or counterterrorism type issues."