Members of the Australian police mission walk in front of the main terminal after arriving at Kharkiv airport, before proceeding to the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 July 26, 2014. Nearly 300 people, 193 of them Dutch citizens, were killed w
Members of the Australian police mission walk in front of the main terminal after arriving at Kharkiv airport, before proceeding to the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 July 26, 2014. Nearly 300 people, 193 of them Dutch citizens, were killed when the Malaysia Airlines plane en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was brought down in eastern Ukraine, where separatists are battling government forces, on July 17. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko (UKRAINE - Tags: POLITICS DISASTER TRANSPORT) REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

A recent report revealed that Thunder Bay Police Service is one of the most inefficient ones in Canada.

The Fraser Institute report was released on Monday, Sept 22. It suggested that the local police force in Thunder Bay had the "most overstaffed" forces in Canada. Livio Di Matteo, the Lakehead University professor who authored the study, based the results on Statistics Canada data for police resources, costs and crime rates. CBC News reported that he had consulted reports between 2001 and 2012. According to Di Matteo, Thunder Bay has 193 officers while it should ideally have 170 officers only, according to what the model predicted in 2011.

Di Matteo also said that there might be some unique crime factors in the area that would require more resources. "When you see these numbers, the first thing you do have to ask yourself is there something about how you police, your style of policing, or perhaps the development of the force over time that explains the difference," he asked, "Are there local crime factors that are unique that maybe require more resources?" according to CBC News.

According to Di Matteo, the crime rate fell by 26.3 per cent between 2001 and 2012 while police officers rose 8.7 per cent in every 100,000 Canadians. He said that the cost of policing went by by 45.5 per cent from 1986 to 2012 while the number of criminal incidents for every officer fell by 36.8 per cent. Di Matteo said that taxpayers had been paying more than ever for the maintenance of a larger than required police force, the Vancouver Sun reported.

Thunder Bay Police spokesperson Julie Tilbury said that Thunder Bay officers faced additional expenses and challenges that included operating a Tactical Unit. She said that a Tactical Unit was not something every police force had. "Not all police forces do have a tactical unit. They sometimes work jointly with other organizations. However based on the fact we are such an isolated area, Thunder Bay police do feel it's a need to maintain a tactical unit in order to meet the needs of the community," Tilbury told CBC News. She also said that there were several other soci-economic factors in the city that posed unique challenges to police.

Contact the writer: s.mukhopadhyay@ibtimes.com.au