CRIME: STATISTICS CITY NO. 2

The 2005 municipal crime rate report released by the Ministry of
Public Safety and Solicitor General shows that Williams Lake had the
second highest crime rate in the province.

The crime rates varied from a low of 34 Criminal Code offenses per
1,000 population, to a high of 301. Williams Lake had 252, second
only to Smithers.

According to the report, the lakecity had 11,872 full-time residents
in 2005, and suffered 2,995 Criminal Code offenses that year.

City councilor Ed Mead said that while the statistics are meaningful,
they don't necessarily indicate that the city is a dangerous place to live.

"I think the good point is what we've done as a community to address
this situation," Mead said.

He said Williams Lake had the second highest crime rate for 2004 as
well, with 275 offenses per 1,000 people, but that changes have been
made since that report came out last year.

"We (City Council) made crime reduction our number one priority. As a
result, the RCMP have adopted a new service model, we've hired a
community safety coordinator, there has been the reopening of the
community policing office, and there has been a tremendous response
from the community," Mead said.

He said Citizens on Patrol has more volunteers than last year, and
Block Watch is up and running this year.

The city has also bought two mobile security cameras that can be
moved where they are needed, and it is in the process of hiring a
social planning coordinator, which should help deal with some of the
root causes of crime, Mead said.

"There's issues like education and standard of living. There's no way
you can address some of these issues on the short term. These things
are going to take longer," he said.

Staff Sgt. Grant Martin said that there are trends in the types of
crimes committed in the city.

"Certainly the majority of our crimes have been property related.
We've seen a trend of more violent crime - that's certainly rising as
well," Martin said. "People have to be more aware that some of the
bigger city crime is starting to creep into places like Williams Lake
and Quesnel."

The RCMP's new service model that Councilor Mead spoke of includes a
proactive crime task force, Martin said.

"We did form a three-person task force.

"Their mandate is to target our habitual offenders. It's being more
proactive out there and identifying who our highest risk offenders
are and dealing with them more severely," Martin said.

Martin said drugs are another huge issue in the community. He said
most of the property crimes can be tied to drugs, because often an
offender is stealing things to support a drug habit.

To help deal with this issue, the RCMP will be getting a new drug
enforcement officer, Martin said.

The province's municipal case burden report was also recently released.

Case burdens are defined in the report as the number of Criminal Code
offenses, excluding traffic, per authorized police strength. They
represent the workload per officer in each municipality.

Williams Lake had 23 officers last year and 2,995 Criminal Code
offenses, so the case burden was 130 per officer.

This is the eighth highest case burden in the province.

The case burden does not include the amount of time officers spend
providing general assistance to the public, participating in crime
prevention programs, or enforcing traffic laws.

Martin said that his detachment is very busy.

He said they receive about 50 calls every day, and that this average
gets larger every year.

He said that last year the detachment received about 14,000 calls,
and he expects there will be even more this year.

"We need to see a little growth in the detachment, but the city has
been working hard to help us address those needs," he said.