JUST HOW BAD IS LOCAL VIOLENCE, PROPERTY CRIME?

Statistics Show Incidents Actually Down From Previous Decade

The hand-wringing over gun violence during Christmas week and the
current media campaign by the Vancouver Police Department about the
epidemic of property crime prompted me to go to the library.

How can things be so bad in Canada and Vancouver when both are
regularly named as among the most livable nations and most livable
cities in the world?

I'll tell you why -- I think the fear in the headlines and the gore on
the tube are misleading. The truth is crime rates are at their lowest
point in decades both nationally and within the city.

The national crime rate is down 12 per cent over the last decade.
Property crime in Canada is down 24 per cent from the early 1990s. The
rate of break-ins, for instance, is 36 per cent lower than a decade
ago.

The Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics says in 2004 the property
crime rate fell three per cent, most of that involving petty theft
under $5,000. I guess I can see why we need a big publicity campaign
to scare the hell out of home and vehicle owners and boost
alarm-company profits.

It's the same across North America. Statistics released only a few
months ago show crime rates in the U.S. at their lowest levels since
Washington started surveying victims in 1973. Since 1993, violent
crime has fallen by 57 per cent and property crime by 50 per cent.

These aren't small, insignificant drops or decreases. As American
commentators noted, you were more likely to be a victim of crime in
the 1950s than you are today.

Yet some politicians, police, ICBC and some media pundits continue to
portray the Lower Mainland as the crime capital of Canada and our
communities as overrun with evil-doers. The numbers bandied about
making us look like some kind of Sodom are more about BS and politics
than B.C. and reality.

In this region, more than eight of 10 offences are linked to drug
addiction and mental illness -- most the product of a frayed social
safety net and desperation.

The roots of our current policing problems are directly tied to our
failure to address the underlying social issues and our failure to
make burgeoning gang culture the top policing priorities instead of
property crime and marijuana smokers.

At a time when violence is increasing, police across Canada increased
by 15 per cent the number of people they charged with possession of
pot last year -- not traffickers or growers, but people with a reefer
or a small stash of pot.

Of the 97,000 drug charges that bogged down the cops and clogged up
our nation's courts last year, more than 70 per cent involved
cannabis. Possession of marijuana charges increased 54 per cent in the
last decade even as Ottawa mulled decriminalization.

It is a waste of legal and judicial resources.

In the Lower Mainland, as in Toronto, Winnipeg, Montreal and
elsewhere, the cancer is gangs involved in prostitution, smuggling,
widespread street drug-dealing, extortion and other crimes backed by
intimidation and murder.

Yet the best we've been able to do locally is stick our head in the
sand and blame refugees or South Asians.

Furthermore, in the Lower Mainland, we waste enormous law-enforcement
resources and give our crooks a leg up with an inefficient patchwork
of jurisdictions.

Cops in West Van are often so idle they drive around randomly typing
into their computers licence plates in the hope of matching one from a
stolen car. Very productive.

If we want to end the violence, I think we must change our drug
policies, improve our social programs and task police to target the
violent instead of the addicted, mental ill or socially crippled.

The "hundreds of thousands" the police and ICBC are currently giving
to ad agencies and media outlets in the anti-theft campaign would have
been better spent on services for the poor.

In a city this big there are thousands of break-ins and auto-thefts,
most committed by teenagers and addicts. There always will be and
there will always be victims willing to stand up and say it's horrible
and it feels like being raped. Of course it does.

It is the same with violence. One murder or one assault is too
many.

But let's be realistic and keep our fear in perspective.

Vancouver is no worse than other Canadian cities and about half as bad
as most American cities when it comes to crime.

Our laws are tough enough and I think we have enough police, they are
simply misdirected by bosses and politicians more interested in making
headlines than addressing the real problems: poverty and despair.