My Mike Archer. Darryl Plecas is a funny academic. He’s funny because, when he opens his mouth, he ties himself in such unbelievably silly knots he can’t be taken seriously.
For those who don’t know, Plecas is the darling of the police forces of the Lower Mainland because, when he was a professor at what was then a community college, he published some opinions which various Lower Mainland police forces and municipalities used to break the law and invade citizens properties without warrants.
The bylaws created as a result of Plecas’ idiotic attempt to circumvent the criminal code in pursuit of marijuana growers turned out to be illegal, unenforceable and costly mistakes for the municipalities which adopted them. His almost religious belief in the drug war helped local police departments commit to ever higher costs pursuing and endlessly increasing spiral of funding needs despite a documented and long term reduction in crimes rates which both Plecas and the police departments gleefully ignored.
Ignored, that is, until it became apparent that, in the academic world, Plecas was very lonely in the Western academic world in arguing the opposite.
No politician or newspaper in the Fraser Valley, all of whom refer to his academic credentials as though they were significant, has ever revealed that Plecas’ job at UFV as the RCMP Chair of the Criminology Department is funded by the police.
Darryl at the office … fighting crimes
Intellectual consistency and honesty would require you to make a choice. Is that why you decided to become a politician?
In this campaign video (below) he first rails against the increasing costs of policing, to which he has proudly contributed in his war on drugs, and then claims credit, on behalf of his police paymasters, for the reduction in crime, which has been consistent across the board for over 30 years in Western democracies.
He then describes the justice system as though it were in tatters while once again congratulating the police for eliminating crime. (I;m so confused)
As always happens when Darryl opens his mouth, one is never sure what the hell he is saying.
If crime is going down, shouldn’t we be paying less for policing?
If decreasing the costs of policing is so important, why has Darryl done so much to contribute to the costs of policing?
As we keep asking Darryl – if they are reducing crime so successfully why are we paying the Abbotsford Police almost 50 percent of our municipal budget?
Again — keep your eyes on the ball Darryl —
- Is crime going up or down?
- Should we pay the police more or less?
- Are they succeeding or failing at eliminating crime?
- Who do you work for?
- Are you an academic or a politician?
- Are we making this too complicated for you?
Anyone who has studied criminology knows that police are very impotent when it comes to ‘fighting’ or preventing crime. They investigate and catch criminals after the fact. Most of policing is public relations.
The reason 650,000 people don’t attack each other, rob one another and beat each other up in Vancouver is not because they are afraid of the police. It is because the vast majority of people are not criminals and the more we can increase the number of those of us who are not living desperate, awful lives the more crime decreases.
Yet Plecas is among those who would throw away 60 years of social progress and ratchet up the rhetoric on crime in order to get elected.
Doesn’t sound very academic does it?
His one claim to fame is that as a criminal evangelist he advised governments and police departments to break the law, ignore the criminal code and the Constitution in order invade private property in the prosecution of his war on marijuana – the biggest waste of money and cause for municipal government and police cost increases since the prohibition fiasco of almost 100 years ago.
A more unsuitable curriculum vitae for the position he is seeking is hard to imagine.
Editor’s Note: Over the years we have repeatedly asked Darryl to provide us with a real piece of academic research he has done of any significance in a peer-reviewed journal of any significance and we have offered to publish it if he would produce it.
He sent us two nondescript essays he did on how marijuana smoke can damage your lungs. We reiterate our offer.
I believe the fact that Mr. Plecas, who is running in Abbotsford South, somehow managed to locate his campaign headquarters in Abbotsford West, says all that is needed about his lack of cognitive capacity – and common sense.