Our old friends, the Transit Police, came out yesterday with a news release patting themselves on the back for “a record 17 per cent reduction in crimes against people” and cutting overtime costs by 50 per cent.

Crime is down—good. It looks like transit is finally catching up with the rest of the Lower Mainland. On page 55 of the spring 2012 review into the Transit Police, we see a 6.8 per cent decrease in transit-related crime from 2008 to 2010. Of course, that was less than half the 13.9 per cent decrease in crime reported throughout Greater Vancouver.

The news release touts the fact that Transit Police forward 500 charge recommendations to Crown Counsel during the first six months of 2012—and arrested 530 other people with outstanding warrants. That’s 1,030 crimes in six months—a tiny statistical fraction when compared to the 1.4 million fare checks they did.

Let’s crunch the numbers: 1,030 charges and warrants. A sworn police force of 167 officers. That’s 6.2 charges/warrant arrests per officer for HALF A YEAR. All that for $27 million!

Page 52 of the spring audit showed that the average Transit Police officer worked on 9.9 violent and property crime files ALL YEAR in 2010.

How much of the drop in crime is due to the increased presence of the lower-paid, more efficient Transit Security? The news release doesn’t mention them. One also wonders if the lack of a Canuck playoff run and a Stanley Cup riot factored into those statistics.

As for the overtime cuts, good—the spring audit showed Transit Police overtime was twice as much as VPD’s much larger operations division.

Before the cut in overtime, the average Transit Police officer got $6,900 extra in overtime, $2,000 extra in Sunday premiums (that’s a 25% bonus for working Sundays) and $5,000 for the “Reduced” work week. That’s $13,900 each a year. Even with overtime cut in half, the average cop would still get $10,400 in perk pay annually.

Forgive us if we forgo the celebratory parade for the Transit Police leadership.

(And, as always, our usual hello to Chief Neil Dubord, who we’re sure is continuing to “monitor our blog.”)