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So even at 100% conviction rate, that would mean the police were right less then 5-7% of the time at the G20. WOW. That's a truly godawful success rate.

With $1.2 billion spent on security I guess that works out to be about $17-24 million per person convicted?

But wait, I'm sure they won't get even close to a 100% conviction rate. I question if even 50% of those prosecuted will be convicted.

how can anyone pretend that the police did a good job looking at these numbers?

I have to say I have had really good experiences with Toronto Police on the whole (except they seem untrained, untalented, and passive-aggressive when called upon to direct traffic!).

BUT - the G20 was just plain weird! Police seemed obsessed with harassing protestors - while ignoring, if not facilitating the "black bloc". 3 police cars were left unattended (has anyone ever witnessed this before?) in the path of vandals and allowed them to burn practically to molten metal for the cameras without making an effort to put them out. Meanwhile, a thousand innocent people taken into police "custody" (metal wire cages) were very shoddily treated, strip searched and in some cases, threatened with violence including rape. Are these the actions of OUR Toronto police force? It doesn't make any sense at all. I know a lot of "security" was hired and brought in for the occasion. Does anyone at ehMac work with the police department? I'd like to know what the police-on-the-street point of view is.

While the security at the G20 was botched, it isn't fair to divide out the costs like that, since the success of the security endeavour was not dependent on a goal of arresting or convicting people.

It's like saying that an antibiotic can be justified by the number of microbes it kills, rather than how many lives it saves.

Perhaps, but I came out with those calculations to illustrate the absurd mount of money that was spent for terrible police work and security.

If the game plan was to just arrest anyone they wanted out in public the government should have just brought in the military & declared martial law.

Maybe it is an unfair cost analysis.

Here's my balance sheet...
- Cost of securing delegates against harm: $19 million*
- Abusive power trip at the expense of taxpayers: $1.18 billion** (priceless)


* City of Pittsburgh security costs hosting G20 in 2009
** $1.2 billion - $19 million = $1.18 billion

The sad thing is prior to the G20, many people accused the police of using the "Miami model" as the strategy for running security :

Miami model - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It turns out they were bang on.

At the 2003 FTAA meeting in Miami more than 200 people were mass arrested. Only 4 were actually convicted.

I'm guessing we're going to see about the same percentage from the G20 in toronto.

If the public allows governments to get away with this we've basically handed over any right to protest in the future. All they have to do let a couple of cop cars burn and then they're good to arrest people on sight.

^^^Perhaps protesters shouldn't be burning police cars and smashing storefronts, then maybe there won't be issues with having your civil rights suspended while all the fat cats are in town. Once you cross that line, the cops must react...the rest of society demands it.

maybe they shouldn't have left cop cars, unattended.

You'd think with a BILLION BUCKS they could have, y'know, figured that one out.

Groove, r-u-kiddn...? Screw the cars, all they had on their mind was the overtime...and perhaps an adrenaline rush.

The only people who didn't get a chunk of that 1.2B is you and me buddy.

I don't see a problem with this at all. The job of the security was to remove the protesters from the area. Whether they are ever even charged, let alone convicted, is barely even relevant.

Those who were arrested have only themselves to blame.