Most Hamilton police officers don't live in Hamilton, data shows

Roughly three in five Hamilton Police Service (HPS) officers don't live in Hamilton, new data shows. 

The data, obtained by CBC Hamilton through a freedom of information request, shows 340 officers live in Hamilton and 552 officers don't.

That's 62 per cent of officers who live outside of city bounds.

The figures don't show how far away officers live from the area but, when compared to Statistics Canada data, reveal a contrast to Hamilton workers in all jobs.

That data shows roughly 30 per cent of workers living in Hamilton work outside of the city.

Where officers live has been discussed more in the U.S., leading some police services to create mandates about where they live.

The New York Police Department says officers must live in the city's boroughs or nearby counties to work there while officers of the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police have to live within a 40-kilometre air radius of the city's core.

Some have argued police should live where they work so they better understand the community, while others have said doing so can be a safety risk for officers or can make it harder to recruit new officers.

HPS and other police services across Canada have struggled to attract recruits.

Unlike some American counterparts, HPS doesn't have a requirement about where officers live, but a job posting on the City of Hamilton website seeking new police recruits says one of the bonus qualifications includes being a Hamilton resident, living within a 45 minute drive of downtown or having knowledge of the area by either previously living here, studying here or having family here.

"It's a personal choice," Leanne Sneddon, director of human resources for HPS, said in an interview. "We never screen any candidate out based on where they live."

She also said HPS has never discussed creating a mandate on where officers live.

Jaimi Bannon, president of the Hamilton Police Association, declined an interview and said "all members spend the vast majority of their lives in the City of Hamilton, whether on or off duty."

Bannon didn't say how she knows what officers do on their off time.