Local RCMP stats match citizens’ experiences

Numbers show residents' perception of crime increases is correct

Break and enter of businesses within the city of Fort St. John is up 331 per cent over last year, according to an RCMP update, presented to City Council on Monday.

Detachment Commander Inspector Anthony Hanson presented the update for the first six months of 2023, at the Committee of the Whole meeting on August 14. The figures for this year were compared with the same period last year. To the end of June 2022, there were 16 B&Es of businesses reported in the municipality. This year so far, there have been 69 reported instances. Rural business B&Es are also up, Hansen reported, with eight reported in the first six months of 2022, compared to 26 in 2023. That is an increase of 225 per cent.

“We’re seeing an upswing in business,” Hanson said.

Overall, calls for service are up 25 per cent from 2022, with total municipal crimes up by 52.5 per cent, and total property crimes in the city up 71.2 per cent.

This is a trend Hanson says detachments throughout the North are seeing. “Prince George has become considerably busier over the last year. Their violent crime has spiked to a degree, it’s not isolated to Fort St. John,” he said, noting also that Prince George recently had their ninth murder of the year.

“I don’t have the metric as to why this may be occurring, but the fact of the matter is, industry has restarted. It’s very busy in town again,” Hanson said.

He pointed to the parking lot in front of the Subway on the highway, as an example of increase in industrial activity in the region.

“It was packed with big rigs and industrial vehicles, and two years ago there was nothing there. And that brings the criminals.”

Mayor Lilia Hansen asked him why that would bring criminals.

Increased economic activity, he explained, leads to more money in the community, thus more things to steal, and an increase in property crime due to the drug trade.

“Most of these property crimes and drugs are connections,” he said. “In many cases [property crime] is perpetuated by individuals with addictions who are seeking funds to perpetuate their addiction. Or they’re perpetuated because somebody owes money. There are cases where dealers will tell the people who owe them what to go steal.”

“The more people in the community who are working here, who are not from here, who bring, if they happen to have an addiction of some type, means they are utilising our local dealers.”

For decades, the transient nature of Fort St. John’s population has been blamed for crime in the city and surrounding area. It has long been accepted that an uptick in economic activity, brings with it an increase in crime. However, Hanson admits this current increase is unusual.

“Municipal B&Es have almost doubled in the last five years, that is new territory,” he said.

Business B&Es are not the only crimes that have increased in the city – across the board, thefts have increased. Theft Over $5,000 has gone up 113 per cent, which doesn’t include theft from vehicles, Hanson explained, but does include theft of vehicles.

Rural theft is also up, “driven by residences in Charlie Lake where we spend some time,” he said.

Theft from vehicles is up everywhere, and is above what Hanson refers to as historical norms.

“We’re still seeing a lot of people leaving valuables in their vehicle,” he said. “Daily, we’re getting reports of laptops, wallets and purses that people leave in unlocked vehicles.”

A lot of this theft is occurring in the central city and neighbourhoods adjacent to it, and as theft from vehicles is a fairly low-risk, high reward crime, it’s become a regular habit for the perpetrators. Unfortunately, the courts don’t see property crimes as a risk to public safety, which is part of why they are released so quickly.

“When we have prolific property offenders, we do our best when we prepare our investigative report, to articulate the totality, the effect on society. Then it’s up to the Crown and the judicial process,” Hanson said.

Vehicle theft is up 172 per cent in the city, and 110 per cent overall. Hanson said this is within historial norms, but it is double the same time last year.

The vehicles being stolen are generally older work trucks, often Fords, said Hanson, because they’re easier to break into and steal.

“We’re not yet seeing the more sophisticated electronic thefts of newer vehicles that they’re seeing in Ontario,” he said. Older vehicles are easier to forcibly hot-wire.

Robbery – which is any theft with violence – is up 366.7 per cent in the city. This type of robbery can be as simple as a shove and grab someone’s cellphone, to pulling a knife or a gun and robbing a person that way.

Assaults with weapons are up 141 per cent, which Hanson attributes to the drug trade. “A lot of drug facilitated crime involves violence,” he said.

While the decriminalisation of certain drugs has lead to a reduction in possession numbers, the number of overdose calls in the city are up 30 per cent. Fatal overdose are down 12.5 per cent from 2022, but in terms of numbers, that is just one less death from 2022.

“I would say the reason for the slight decrease in fatal overdoses is that members are getting better at administering life-saving measures quickly,” said Hanson. “The majority of the overdoses are in the municipality, so we’re not driving to Charlie Lake.”

Being the only 24/7 catch-all service in the area, Hanson says the RCMP find themselves called out to a number of emergencies that are not actually in the police’s mandate. These include mental health calls, as well as overdose calls.

“The police are not mental health specialists. But EHS will not attend these calls without us most of the time, for public safety.”

The good news is, the Car 60 program, in which a Northern Health mental health worker and an RCMP member work together on mental health calls is going well.

As a result of “ongoing discussions with Northern Health, we now have the worker working out of the detachment. Northern Health is working towards accessing funding for a second mental health worker,” Hanson said.

Other resources being developed to assist with fighting the rise in crime in Fort St. John and the surrounding area, is the return of Citizens on Patrol. The latest incarnation of the volunteer organization, is being spearheaded by Jackie Miranda, who was prompted to start-up the society by this sharp increase in crime in the city. There was a Citizens on Patrol group in the city in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but apparently lacked volutneers to continue. Hanson says he supports this initiative.

“We support it, because it gives people a positive outlet to assist us, to be extra eyes and ears, because we can’t be everywhere.”

“But I’m really just looking for people to have a positive outlet to work with the police, to show what is being done in the community, and also to perhaps have a greater understanding of just how the criminal justice system works.

For more detail on the latest crime stats in and around Fort St. John, check out Inspector Hanson’s presentation: https://fortstjohn.civicweb.net/filepro/document/130166/Committee%20of%20the%20Whole%20-%2014%20Aug%202023%20Agenda.pdf?widget=true#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A22%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C0%2C540%2C0%5D