VicPD “crime watch” volunteers are watching licence plate stickers

My last post was about VicPD and the city bringing Block Watch policing into neighbourhoods under the guise of community building. If Block Watch doesn’t get you close enough to being a cop for your liking, though, VicPD has just the thing!

I knew VicPD had volunteers, but I used to think it was just older folks who sat at the station’s front desk. When Chief Del Manak said in 2019 that VicPD has “crime watch volunteers riding mountain bikes and reporting any suspicious activity” it caught me off guard. Sorry, what’s that?

Sticker Watch
VicPD describes its “crime watch” program as volunteers who “patrol selected areas and report suspicious activity to the police” and who “participate in crime reduction activities and special initiatives.” VicPD says that all of their volunteers, including the folks at the desk, logged a combined 6,500 hours or so in 2019. But there’s little transparency about what the “crime watch” volunteers actually do, apart from a few reports that mention some of their activities, which include: “van, foot and bike patrols,” “distracted driving/cellphone watch,” and “speed watch.”

A while back I filed a Freedom of Information request for crime watch reports from January to November 2019, to get a sense of what they’re up to. VicPD sent back 1,200 pages of records showing that one of the primary “crime watch” activities for VicPD volunteers is… (drumroll please): checking licence plates to see if insurance decals have expired.

Photo of an insurance sticker. Image source: Mike Bell, Vancouver Sun.

According to their reports, over those 11 months in 2019, crime watch volunteers — the thin narc line — found 485 expired stickers and reported those people to VicPD. On a shift when they only found two expired stickers, a volunteer report noted with regret there was “not much action” that day.

A sample of licence plates reported to VicPD on October 31, 2019 for expired insurance decals.

Now I like stickers as much as the next toddler, but what is this? It seems like ICBC is on board with the basic concept, telling people to call the cops on people with expired stickers. Drivers could face a $598 fine and have their vehicle impounded if they’re driving without insurance. Never mind that these people may actually be insured (the volunteers were confronted by at least one person who was holding their new sticker), or the myriad reasons people might not be able to afford insurance or renew it on time. Check those stickers and call the police!

Volunteers checked stickers on the street, at downtown parkades, at Hillside and Mayfair Mall, and in Esquimalt Plaza, motel parking lots, and even Gorge Hospital. Great job, everyone. Keeping our long term care facilities safe by reporting those visitors and staff to VicPD!

Volunteer notes on checking licence plate stickers at Gorge Road Hospital and Johnson Street Parkade, October 2019.

VicPD volunteers said they looked at around 64,000 vehicles in the first 11 months in 2019. It’s not clear whether they checked licence plates on all those cars, because that number seems to refer to another core “crime watch” function — peering into cars looking for anything of value, to warn people that somebody else might peer into their car and steal their stuff. They left about 700 warning flyers over 11 months, calling it “crime prevention.” Occasionally people told the volunteers to mind their own business and not look in their cars, which makes sense.

VicPD volunteer precogs search for precrime. Image source: CTV Vancouver Island.

Volunteers take notes about a member of the public telling them not to look in their car.

Lest anybody think looking for stickers and backpacks sounds like a huge waste of everyone’s time, the volunteers’ reports also include tick boxes where they can report stolen vehicles (zero) and stolen licence plates (also zero) whenever they find them (literally never).

One of hundreds of “Stolen Vehicles” (zero) and “Stolen Licence Plates” (zero) forms.

The volunteers also occasionally set up “distracted driving watches” and “speed watches” to try to slow people down, while using apps to track people’s speed and licence plates. They don’t have any ability to enforce, although they were still reporting people to VicPD for things like “Drinking pop while driving.” Sometimes they acted as decoys before an actual VicPD speed trap.

Volunteers report licence plates to VicPD for people drinking pop or “non-alcoholic beverages,” smoking, using headphones, or having electronic devices.

Volunteers as Surveillance
VicPD claims their volunteers are “locking out auto crime” by telling people not to leave gifts in cars, and they would like to pretend their sticker patrol is helping people. I’ve made fun of them for that, but VicPD’s volunteer program isn’t really about looking for expired insurance or bags left on front seats. They are “crime watch” volunteers because they are functioning as a cheap extension of police surveillance.

To justify a $144,000 budget request to expand the program in 2017, VicPD said the volunteers were there to “assist the police and the community in preventing crime and disorder” by “provid[ing] a highly visible presence.” VicPD said the program was worth the money because one officer could manage 12 unpaid volunteers for “crime prevention duties.”

The volunteers’ notebooks and reports talk about their patrol work, on foot, in a van, or on bikes. They put on red jackets that say “VicPD Volunteer” and then walk around parking lots, Mayfair Mall and the “downtown library area,” or ride bikes on the Galloping Goose. They didn’t have to do anything beyond checking licence plates, because placing volunteers in those locations is intended to put the idea in people’s heads that VicPD is in these public and private spaces, and they are watching.

Volunteers Extend and Replicate VicPD’s Harms
The volunteers’ notes show they contribute directly to other policing harms by sending VicPD after folks. VicPD says the volunteers are sent to areas “in response to Operations Council priorities.” Sometimes members of the public would complain about something to the volunteers, who passed that info directly to VicPD. Most of the complaints were about people speeding, but volunteers also forwarded locations of people who were camping and places where people were using drugs, for the police to follow up and criminalize those individuals.

According to Statistics Canada, in 2019 Victoria and Esquimalt were the most-policed area per capita in the country with a population over 100,000. VicPD receives 23% of Victoria’s budget and 22% of Esquimalt’s, but VicPD always wants more boots on the ground, so people know they’re being watched, either by officers or VicPD stand-ins.

VicPD’s volunteer program will cost $133,000 in 2021, for people to keep staring into cars and writing down licence plates with expired insurance stickers.

VicPD’s proposed $132,660 2021 volunteer budget.

VicPD volunteers may not carry weapons, but expanding VicPD’s presence is not a public good. Indigenous people, people of colour, people living in homelessness and poverty, people in mental health distress and people who use drugs are targeted and harassed by VicPD. More VicPD resources, be they officers or volunteers, will disproportionately harm those groups.

This is ostensibly a defensive architecture blog, which is all about shaping who can use public spaces. VicPD’s vision of community is based on stigma, harassment and displacement. The threat of a VicPD Block Watch sign and a possible call to the police, or volunteers walking around with VicPD jackets, are visible reminders that some people have chosen to publicly declare their support for enforcing a violent and predominantly white and housed vision of who gets to belong.