CITY CRIME IS SERIOUS BUT MANAGEABLE

A three-pronged policy would help to reduce Vancouver's shameful rate of
property crime: increase the number of police, target habitual criminals and
increase drug treatment opportunities. Vancouver Sun Vancouver isn't very
violent as big cities go, but it continues to enjoy the dubious reputation
as the property crime capital of Canada. There are a lot of reasons for
this, some of them within our control and some not.

People from across the country are drawn here by the city's mild climate, by
the amount of wealth concentrated in a small area, and by a thriving drug
culture on the Downtown Eastside. And once they get here, an attitude of
tolerance for drugs, the ability to buy them almost anywhere and get good
quality at competitive prices, and the availability of health and welfare
benefits all tend to keep them trapped in this lifestyle.

To satisfy their drug habit, some of these addicts inevitably break into
cars, shops or homes.

Yet the number of police on the street hasn't kept pace with the number of
criminals. So it's too easy to commit these crimes, and too easy to get away
with them.

Even when petty criminals (and some not so petty) are caught, they've come
to expect lenient sentences, even for the habitual offenders who repeatedly
break the law. To make matters worse, drug treatment and mental health
facilities are hard to get into, which means that even those junkies who
want to turn over a new leaf can't get any help to do so.

But there's good news in a special report by Vancouver Sun reporter Chad
Skelton. He pointed out in The 'four-per-centers': our real crime problem on
Saturday and Monday that only a few hundred criminals, as few as 300 drug
addicts, are responsible for most of the break-ins and robberies.

If only a few hundred are committing most of the crimes, it makes sense for
police and courts to target them in a very focused way. Calgary may be
showing the way to do it with its successful Serious Habitual Offender
Program. Calgary police know who their most hardened criminals are, and they
lean especially hard on adults with more than 22 convictions or juveniles
with more than seven. They police keep these people (and their associates)
under surveillance. They can frequently catch them in the act. And when the
offender comes to court, the police are there with all the information at
their disposal to ensure maximum prison sentences. Finally, the police and
others in the justice system offer help if or when some of the convicted
criminals want to get their lives back in order.

This is well worth trying here. But a different set of programs should also
be developed to target other offenders who have not yet built up such
massive criminal records.

Drug treatment and counselling are even more important for offenders not yet
fully committed to a criminal lifestyle. So these services much be
available, either as ordered by the courts or for the many who desperately
want to break their dependency on drugs.

It is also important to increase the number of police officers on the
streets. And their work can be supplemented by extending programs such as
Neighbourhood Watch. This will not only help deter many crimes, but also
increase the probability of solving those that do take place.