Thursday, March 17, 2011

Williams Lake Crime Stats - #1 among similiar sized jurisdictions in BC

Over at the BC Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor-General - they've released a report which lays out policing resources throughout the Province which includes details on population in 2009, money spent on policing in BC by individual municipalities, effective crime rate, case load per officer, cost per RCMP member and cost per capita

I'm also aware of further stats on crime in BC that is set to be released tomorrow.  However, I can say the title of "Crime Capital of BC" belongs (and properly in my view) to Vancouver with Surrey close behind

More closer to home - in the category of 5,000 - 15,000 population, here are the top 3 municipalities, in terms of crime stats in the Province of BC:

#1 - Williams Lake

Crime Rate - 252
Criminal Code Offences - 2,797
Case Load - 117 cases per officer (only Smithers is higher at 121 cases per officer)
Number of Officers - 24
Budget - $2,934,899
Per Capita (cost per person) - $265

#2 - Quesnel

Crime Rate - 246
Criminal Code Offences - 2,387
Case Load - 114 cases per officer
Number of Officers - 21
Budget - $3,172,696
Per Capita (cost per person) - $327

#3 - Prince Rupert

Crime Rate - 239
Criminal Code Offences - 3,070
Case Load - 85 cases per officer
Number of Officers - 36
Budget - $3,925,854
Per Capita (cost per person) - $306

Notes:

1) You can read the entire document where the above came from here
2) There are 29 Municipalities in the "5,000-15,000 Population" category

So - it seems while individual crime stats may be on the way down, overall, we still have a long way to go and given WL Council's desire to be #1 for highest industrial property tax mil rate in all of BC, this is certainly good news that Mayor Cook and Council can use

SBF

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Extrememly high Case rate per each 1,000 people for Williams lake --- 2 and a half times that of Kamloops where I now live -- but then again Williams Lake detachment has always been impacted by twice the number of people from rural areas who come in to the city

Anonymous said...

That was 2009 when things were still not great. There's been a ton of improvement in 2010 and I'd be interested to see where we are now.

Steve Forseth said...

Thanks for your comments

Anonymous at 2:04pm -

The 2010 Crime Stats info will not be available until early 2012 but I agree improvements were seen in 2010 but unfortunate it takes 2 years (2010-2012) to see that info

As they say - stay tuned as I'll post the 2010 Crime Stats when it comes out)