The Ministry of Attorney General has backed away from a pilot program that would see sheriffs perform some traffic duties to take the load off police.
In all, 14 sheriffs in eight communities around B.C., including one in Prince George, had received the extra training before the ministry said last Friday the project is being put on hold.
"We ran into some setbacks with this project and will not be in a position to move forward with this initiative yet," assistant deputy minister Rob Wood said in an e-mail to sheriff staff.
British Columbia Government and Service Employees' Union spokesperson Brian Gardner said while the union is disappointed, "we're certainly hopeful it's just a short-term decision and that they will be able to put this plan into play in the very near future."
Gardner said sheriff's duties would have been limited to assisting police on traffic duty, like providing flagging at accident scenes.
A similar approach has been successful in Alberta, he noted, where sheriffs taking on extra traffic duties allowed police to expand its work to assist with anti-gang activity. And sheriffs have taken over the "con air" program from police, where inmates are escorted to other provinces to face charges.
Sheriffs' primary responsbilities are to provide security in court houses and deliver in-custody suspects to court appearances.
The BCGEU is also pushing to have sheriffs deliver warrants now done by police, saying there is a backlog of 7,700 outstanding bench warrants and 25,000 other warrants across B.C.
"We've said o.k., police resources are scarce and especially needs to concentrate on serious crime," Gardner said. "Let's train up sheriffs because they're uniformed and have them do some of this work so it can assist with a more efficient justice system."
