CITY'S DRUG CRIME RATE LOW: STATSCAN

Two new national surveys portray Kingston as a relatively low-crime
haven despite its status as one of the largest urban areas in the country.

Yesterday, Statistics Canada released figures showing that Kingston
has a relatively low rate of drug crimes compared to most large centres.

The overall rate of drug offences in 2007 -- 209 per 100,000
population -- was well below the national rate of 305.

Kingston Police Chief Stephen Tanner said he's not surprised by the
low drug crime figures for the city. He notes the department has had
just two full-time drug squad officers for several years.

"Drug offences are 100% driven by enforcement," he said.

Tanner made drugs a priority when he took over last fall. He has
bumped the number of full-time drug officers to five out of concern
that drug activity fuels other crime, particularly break-ins and
robberies. "Kingston is a safe city," he said. "It will have drugs,
as every city does, and it will have organized crime here."

He expects to see a spike in the number of drug charges laid in the
next few years but that shouldn't be a cause for concern among citizens.

"If we have twice as many (charges), I don't think that would be a
shock," Tanner said. "We just didn't have the people to put into
uncovering it."

It doesn't mean that there is a drug problem today that has gone
unchecked, the chief said.

"There's going to be crime in a city," Tanner said. "There's going to
be drugs in every city."

He hopes that added enforcement will have a deterrent effect and
mitigate related social costs of serious drug problems, including
health care and social services.

More than half of Kingston drug crimes in the StatsCan survey are
cannabis-related. A quarter are cocaine-related. The remaining 25%
involve heroin and other drugs.

Kingston had the fifth highest rate of heroin-related crimes,
although the number of offences was very low at six.

Vancouver has the highest overall rate of drug crimes among large
centres although Trois-Rivieres, Que., has the highest rate of
cannabis offences.

The national rate of police-reported drug crimes hit a 30- year high
in 2007, according to the Statistics Canada report. Part of the
increase is attributed to an increase in the rate of youth accused of
drug offences, which doubled over the past decade.

The overall rate of drug crimes nationally has been steadily
increasing since 1993.

StatsCan notes that a number of factors can influence the rate,
including police crackdowns that lead to more charges.

Legislative changes also can influence the statistics.

Roughly half of the people charged with drug crimes are convicted.

The federal agency released a separate survey showing that there were
seven hate crimes reported to police in 2007. That gave Kingston a
hate-crime rate of 4.6 per 100,000 population, the eighth highest
among the 27 largest urban areas.

Both surveys document only crimes reported to police and
substantiated. They may significantly under-represent the number of
actual crimes.

Kingston's hate crime rate in 2006 was 8.5, second highest in the country.

Kingston Police have said they're aggressive about classifying
incidents as hate crimes and that could drive up the numbers.

Some large police departments have hate crime units whose activities
can influence the rate of crimes in those cities.

Calgary has the highest rate of hate crimes for the second
consecutive year, at 8.0. Calgary police investigated 83 hate crimes in 2007.

Three communities in Quebec, Trois-Rivieres, Saguenay and Sherbrooke,
along with St. John's, N. L., reported no hate crimes in 2007.

The Statistics Canada surveys released yesterday document crime in
the Kingston census metropolitan area, which includes the townships
of South Frontenac, Loyalist and Frontenac Islands. The area has a
population of roughly 153,000.

Last month, StatsCan reported that the severity of violent crime in
Kingston is among the lowest across the country. There has not been a
murder in Kingston since the June 2007 slaying of taxi driver David
Krick. The number of hate crimes reported to police in Kingston fell
by roughly half in 2007 from 2006, when police logged 13.

Drug crime in Kingston

Total offences:319 Cannabis:166 Cocaine:81 Heroin:6

Other drugs:66

Total drug crime rate:208.7 National rate:305.3

Source: Statistics Canada, Trends in police-reported drug offences in 2007.