SURVEY ON CRIME REVEALS COMMUNITY'S PREFERENCE

When it comes to policing, drugs are the top concern of
Rupertites.

Sixty-one per cent of respondents to an annual community policing
survey just released by the local RCMP detachment said fighting local
drug traffickers should be the number 1 priority of local law
enforcement officials. Survey results will be used by the detachment
to plan its local priorities for the coming year.

Breaking and entering was a distant second, with 16 per cent of the
360 people who completed the survey fingering B&Es as the top
priority. That was followed closely by youth crime, at 12 per cent.

Traffic and violence trailed the list of top-five priorities at six
per cent and five per cent respectively.

Less than one per cent of respondents felt other concerns were the
most pressing.

Departing community policing officer Const. Mike Legault said
concerns were mostly unchanged from the year before, when fewer
completed surveys were returned.

"Priorities for the year 2000 came back basically the same as the year
before with only 77 people responding," he said.

Legault said the local concern with drugs and youth mirrors wider
provincial and national concerns.

Nationally and provincially, the RCMP's top priorities for the coming
year will be youth and organized crime. And Legault said local concern
with drugs in particular fits in nicely with the force's wider
priority of fighting organized crime.

"Instead of us saying organized crime at larger level, we're saying
drugs is one of our focuses," he said.