TREAT ADDICTION TO CUT CAR THEFTS

Last Year's Big Increase in Stolen Vehicles Yet Another Symptom of Drugs' Damage

One of the most famous car thieves in B.C. was captured in a chilling
bait-car video, raving, out of control and trying for one more hit of
drugs even after police disabled the car by remote control.

It was frightening to imagine the potential carnage every time the man
stole another car.

More frightening when you realize the scene was also typical. Car
thefts, like so many of the other crimes undermining our shared sense
of security, are driven by addiction.

Auto thefts in Victoria jumped by 42 per cent last year, according to
ICBC, despite the expansion of the bait car program. Some 270 cars
were stolen. The direct costs to the owners and to all residents
through rising insurance rates are significant. So are the indirect
costs -- the lost security, the extra policing, the risk of terrible
outcomes like this month's chase and fatal shooting.

So what are we to do?

Here, we recognize the risk of sounding like a broken
record.

If we wish to reduce property crime, we need to address the addictions
that are driving them.

Certainly the bait-car program is part of the equation. Perhaps
targeted policing can play a role. Maybe locking up more car thieves,
especially the relatively small number committing many repeat
offences, would make a dent in the problem.

But we can't afford enough police officers to watch every car or
enough jails to lock up every offender. The idea of deterrence is
largely ineffective when criminals are chasing the money to pay for an
addiction. If they were deterrable, the bleak conditions of their
lives would have done that long ago.

The damage being done to our sense of community by drug-fuelled crime
is significant. It's necessary to warn visitors about taking care to
make sure their cars are empty of any packages when parking even in
high-traffic areas downtown. Everyone, it seems, has a story of theft
or vandalism. At $400 or $500 a time, the economic loss is serious,
but so is the loss of confidence in our safety.

Victoria Police Chief Paul Battershill said last year that 90 per cent
of the property crime in the city -- the car thefts, the home
break-ins -- is committed by people seeking money for addictions.

Sgt. Keith Lewis, Vancouver Island co-ordinator of the regional auto
crime team, went further in commenting on the rising car thefts.

"I've never charged a person on a bait-car file that didn't have a
serious substance problem," he noted.

Dealing with crime means dealing effectively and pragmatically with
addiction.