WE'RE NO. 1, BUT IT'S A DUBIOUS HONOUR

The Lower Mainland is the crime capital of Canada; it's time we held
local and regional governments to account

The climate, the legacy of the Wild West, the lure of easy pickings,
the abundance of drugs and lax enforcement may all have contributed
to the Lower Mainland's dubious distinction as Canada's capital of crime.

The Greater Vancouver Regional District has the worst property crime
rate in Canada and although local politicians like to point out that
the rate dropped four per cent last year, this is hardly a cause for
celebration.

The City of Vancouver is tied with Winnipeg for the highest number of
criminal code offences in the country (adjusted for population). The
rate of property crimes reported to police in Vancouver last year was
8,481 per 100,000 population and was little changed from 2003. Losses
from property crime in the city last year are estimated at $130
million with residents picking up $108 million of the burden. Many
property crimes are not reported and is so pervasive that police
rarely investigate or even bother to visit the crime scene.

In Burnaby the property crime rate in 2004 was 9,067, an increase of
8.5 per cent from 2003. Surrey reported a rate of 7,654, a decline of
8.2 per cent, although it continues to cling tenaciously to its title
as the No. 1 municipality in North America for car theft. (To be
fair, many vehicles are stolen elsewhere and recovered in Surrey.)

The GVRD is also by far the worst municipal region for robbery,
outpacing the incidence rate in other large regions by a wide margin.
The robbery rate per capita in Vancouver last year was 34.97 per
100,000 persons, more than six times the rate in Toronto (5.79 per
100,000). The 156 robberies at local financial institutions by
mid-2005 indicate the final number for the year will easily exceed
the 204 reported robberies in 2004.

Criminals who commit robbery in the GVRD are far less likely to be
incarcerated than in any other jurisdiction in Canada. And the few
who do go to jail spend less than half the time behind bars offenders
in Calgary or Edmonton do. Not surprisingly, the recidivism rate is
higher here than elsewhere in Canada with two-thirds of all robberies
committed by those with previous convictions, compared with about
half for other major metropolitan areas. About a third of robberies
in the GVRD are committed by criminals on parole, on probation, out
on bail or unlawfully at large.

Police attribute 84 per cent of all crime in the GVRD to drug
addiction, a far greater percentage than in other major urban
centres. Many of the region's drug addicts come from elsewhere, drawn
by the abundance of drugs, the absence of enforcement of illicit drug
laws and an array of social services that enable and encourage the
drug subculture.

The city of Vancouver has embraced the "Four Pillars" approach -- an
initiative that this editorial board supports -- to the epidemic of
drugs and crime, which emphasizes harm reduction as well as
enforcement. Politicians of all stripes have declared this strategy
an unqualified success. There have been no deaths at Vancouver's safe
injection site, despite more than 100 overdoses.

The impact of harm reduction on crime, however, is not apparent so
far. The volume of marijuana seized in 2004 was 20 times of the take
in 2002, while the weight of methamphetamine has increased tenfold.
The region's high crime rate persists.

A number of municipalities have budgeted for additional police
officers while others have pledged to put more cops on the beat, on
the street, on bikes, or even on horseback. But despite the best
efforts of the police, the fact remains that in 2003, 77 per cent of
all criminal code offences in B.C. were unsolved.

Crime is rampant throughout the GVRD, no community is immune. Voters
might want to consider whether they feel safe at home, are
comfortable going out at night or have confidence that the police are
capable of upholding the law and dealing effectively with criminals
before they cast their ballots.

Municipal councils approve police activities and budgets and should
be held accountable for their performance.