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There is often little worse, and usually little as inefficient and ultimately wasteful, as public policy on the fly. Which is invariably public policy hastily stitched together in response to some sudden public outcry.

The B.C. government's response last week to a recent spate of gang violence certainly has all the markings of bad public policy.

When Premier Gordon Campbell announced that the province would hire 168 more police officers and 10 more prosecutors to focus on gang activity, it sure sounded good. And he was applauded at a news conference when he said that gangs are “not welcome in our province … on our streets … in our communities.”

But the truth is his wasn't a plan conceived after months of carefully considering the gang problem in the province. Only a week earlier, B.C.'s Attorney-General had said the streets of Metro Vancouver were safe. Even a couple of days before the announcement, the Premier looked dumbstruck when a reporter pressed him to be more specific about what the province planned to do beyond promising to “crack down on gang activity.”

In other words, there was no evidence of a brewing strategy.

But amid an unprecedented week-plus gang war that continues today, the Liberals were getting hammered by the NDP opposition for having allowed the situation to reach this point. After all, the government had pledged to do something about the issue after the gang-related, six-person slaughter – including two innocent bystanders – at a Surrey high-rise.

That was back in October, 2007.

Nothing was done.

That is why this time around the Liberals knew they were vulnerable on the issue and needed to do something – fast.

The plan was so last-minute that even today no one is quite sure where all the new officers will be going. Will they end up bolstering RCMP ranks or municipal police forces like Vancouver's? They will have to go on someone's payroll.

But here's the question that no one seemed to address at the Premier's news conference on Friday: Who's in charge of eradicating gang violence in Metro Vancouver?

It's a question put to me by a Metro Vancouver police chief last week. I didn't know the answer.

“No one,” he said.

You can't have a successful strategy for anything without someone in charge. And in this case, there's no one responsible because of the patchwork nature of policing in Metro Vancouver.

You have large swaths of the area controlled by the Mounties and other chunks overseen by police forces operated by municipalities and cities such as Vancouver. You have the RCMP with its opinions and strategies about dealing with gangs, and you have the Vancouver Police Department with its own.

The answer seems obvious: Go to a regional policing model such as Metro Toronto's. But that, of course, would mean having an uncomfortable conversation with the RCMP.

“But think about it,” one police chief said. “If you were to design a policing structure for the region, would you design one like ours? Not in a million years.”

Gang violence isn't a problem that can be solved with quick fixes. Pouring more officers into a model that doesn't work isn't the answer. If the current setup was working, even marginally, B.C. wouldn't be facing the gang crisis it is right now.

Even B.C. Attorney-General Wally Oppal knows this and has long argued for a regional police force. Even his own government won't listen to him. It's a call that has been joined by many, including Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu and West Vancouver Police Chief Kash Heed, two of the sharpest policing minds in the country.

Former Vancouver mayor and B.C. premier Mike Harcourt isn't optimistic about the recently announced strategy of the Liberal government either. He thinks it's bad public policy written in haste. He believes that only a region-wide approach to combatting gang violence is the answer.

“It won't work otherwise,” the former NDP premier said the other day. “You need to bring something back like the Co-ordinated Law Enforcement Unit that we used to have and just sic it on these gangsters. You can't have all these different silos of policing, it won't work.”

And then once the police and courts nail these guys, Mr. Harcourt said, well, he has some thoughts on that too.

“You know what you do?” he said. “You send them to Baffin Island for 25 years. I'm serious. Make ‘em work the entire time, pickaxe, the whole thing. I know that might make me sound a little redneck, but that's what we have to do.”

He probably has a lot of people agreeing with him.