RCMP Supt. Ted De Jager echoed the sentiments of Penticton Mayor Andrew Jakubeit when it comes to interpreting Statistic Canada crime stats.
“I can’t agree with him (Jakubeit) more,” said De Jager at a press conference Wednesday. “Those are the concerns that we have as police, when we look at any one type of crime measure. So CSI (Crime Severity Index) is being used to compare city to city and that’s not really what it’s for, it’s to compare trends.
“So for me and my staff to look at is where we need to target our resources and we know in Penticton, for instance, we need to target our resources and we have been doing that, on property crime.”
Related: Penticton city crime stats up slightly
Jakubeit refuted the idea Penticton was more dangerous than Surrey or Vancouver based on this city’s Crime Severity Index (CSI)145.03 in 2017 which according to Maclean’s magazine put Penticton in 16th place nationally in this year’s report.
Surrey came in at 32nd and Vancouver 35th. The stats are based on a 100,000 population.
“From the CSI perspective, yes we are number 16, so certainly driven by four homicides — the three homicides in Penticton are all solved all known offenders, so it wasn’t random in any way, yet the CSI is going to be affected by that,” said De Jager.
He added the top contributors to the CSI was break and enters and theft from motor vehicles.
“What’s driving our CSI is property crime,” said De Jager.
Of the 450 theft from vehicle complaints received to the end of June, he said about half were from unlocked vehicles which was a huge factor in reports of Penticton having the highest property crime rate.
“And if we just go to a quarter, say 100 unlocked vehicles, and if people had locked those vehicles and removed the valuables our property crime rate would have dropped to the lowest of the four big Okanagan cities,” said De Jager.
“That’s how much effect the public getting involved can affect those rates and that’s the caution I have for all of you when you take one particular part of statistics.”
Related: Penticton crime rate highest in Valley
At the first community forum shortly after his arrival, he heard “loud and clear” that property crime was the main issue.
“We know that property crime is the domain of the prolific offender, so we focused a lot of effort on the prolific offenders in this community,” he said. “When we look at things — break and enters — the first six months of 2018 are down 30 per cent across all categories and that’s significant, but doesn’t mean they’re not occurring.”
He added with the arrival of summer, and the populations of Penticton and Osoyoos doubling and tripling respectively, those numbers will go up.
As well, the downtown clean up by the combined efforts of RCMP and city bylaw officers also seems to be paying off, resulting in fewer complaints according to De Jager.
“Talking with our partners the Downtown Penticton Association and the chamber they feel there’s been an improvement as well again that doesn’t mean we can take our foot off the gas there is still a lot of work,” he said.