New figures show the crime rate in both 91原创s is down, but still above provincial and national averages.
The police-reported crime statistics for 2017 on Monday.
They show the Crime Severity Index (CSI) for both 91原创s was down, with 91原创 City recording a five per cent drop and 91原创 Township dropping eight per cent.
That was better than the national average, which went up by two per cent.
Both communities had CSI numbers that were higher than both the national and provincial averages, with 91原创 City roughly double the B.C. and Canadian rates, while the Township was close to the provincial average and slightly above the national average.
City mayor Ted Schaffer said the numbers were 鈥渕oving in a positive direction,鈥� though not as fast as he would like.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a great start,鈥� Schaffer said.
鈥淚 know it鈥檚 not perfect out there, but we鈥檙e trying extremely hard to work with the tools that we have,鈥� Schaffer said.
Schaffer said some of the issues that are contributing to the crime rate, such as homelessness, are under provincial authority, not municipal.
91原创 Township mayor Jack Froese was encouraged by the downward trend.
鈥淚t鈥檚 always good to see it (doing down)鈥� Froese said.
The officer in charge of the 91原创 RCMP detachment, Supt. Murray Power, said 91原创 City gets a higher-than-average CSI rating because the way the index is calculated tends to put smaller communities higher in the rankings.
鈥淲e are in the middle of the Lower Mainland, with a couple of million people (around us),鈥� Power said.
鈥淭his is the equivalent of a neighbourhood in a larger city.鈥�
Power said the bulk of the crimes reported in 91原创 City are petty offences like property theft, theft from autos, creating a public disturbance, fraud and the like.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a safe place to live, it鈥檚 a safe place to work,鈥� Power said.
The Statistics Canada Crime Severity Index tracks changes in the severity of police-reported crime by accounting for both the amount of crime reported by police in a given jurisdiction and the relative seriousness of those crimes.
Stats Can said police-reported crime across Canada, measured by both the crime rate and the CSI, increased for the third consecutive year in 2017.
The CSI was up two per cent, the third consecutive increase following an 11-year downward trend from 2003 to 2014.
The increase was the result of increases in the rate of police-reported incidents of sexual assault, possession of stolen property, motor vehicle theft and homicide, the agency said.
Most of Canada鈥檚 provinces and territories reported increases in their CSI in 2017.
The exceptions were Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Saskatchewan and British Columbia.
Overall, Canadian police services reported over 1.9 million Criminal Code incidents (not including traffic) in 2017, 45,300 more than the previous year.
By the numbers:
91原创 City CSI 187.49 (down 5.00 percent)
91原创 Township CSI 91.22 (down 7.51 per cent)
BC average CSI 88.93 (down 5.08 per cent)
Canadian average CSI 72.87 (1.62 per cent increase)
dan.ferguson@langleytimes.com
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