CRIME RATE NEAR NATION'S WORST

Most Involves Drug Addicts And Vehicles

Vancouver's overall crime rate is nearly tied with Winnipeg for worst
in Canada, and two-thirds of reported offences involve property
crime, according to a Vancouver Board of Trade report.

"The quality of life in this city has gone down over the years, and a
lot of it has to do with criminal activity and the disorder on the
streets," Dave Park, the board's chief economist, said yesterday.

For Greater Vancouver, the property-crime rate is the worst of any
major metropolitan region in Canada.

The study concluded that property crime cost $130 million in
Vancouver last year, with residents hit for $108 million of the total.

About half of the property-crime losses involve thefts from vehicles,
stolen vehicles and vehicle vandalism, costing about $69 million, the
study found.

There's some good news: In Greater Vancouver, the property-crime rate
dropped by four per cent last year; and in Vancouver, the rate
dropped by 0.1 per cent.

Operation Co-operation, in which Vancouver police and security guards
work together against property theft and chronic thieves, has met
with success in downtown Vancouver, where theft from vehicles plunged
by 40 per cent as of August 2004, with vehicle thefts plummeting by
33 per cent for that same year-over-year period.

Vancouver police teamed up with Simon Fraser University
criminologists to create a chronic-offender program.

"Eighty per cent of the crime is committed by about five per cent of
the criminal population," said Vancouver police spokesman Const. Tim Fanning.

Police now monitor 80 people who have committed a dozen offences in
as many months. Their reports to prosecutors include information such
as a criminal's mental-health issues, learning disabilities and
addiction problems.

"We can paint an accurate picture and try to get the resources that
they need to get some help," Fanning said.

"What the police see is it's somebody that's poorly educated . . .
doesn't have what most people are fortunate enough to have, which is
a home, and support around them, and some future ahead of them, of
living a good life."

But not every chronic offender is willing to participate in programs.

"If they're not going to take treatment, they have to go to jail,"
Fanning said. "Something's got to happen to break the cycle."

Block Watch has proved effective in combating crime, Fanning said.

"That's how we catch people when somebody's getting their house
broken into . . . it's because the neighbour's paying attention."

With up to 90 per cent of property crime committed by drug addicts,
more money needs to be spent on treatment, along with street-level
intervention to prevent young people from becoming addicted, Park said.

The board of trade also wants to see more police, increased regional
police co-operation, tougher sentencing, more prosecutors and chronic
offenders kept in jail pending trials.