Incidents of property crime, auto theft, break and enters, violent crime, domestic violence and thefts from vehicles all went down in Mission in 2017.
That’s according to statistics released by the Mission RCMP in a report to council on Monday afternoon.
Staff Sgt. Steve Crawford made the presentation, telling council there “are lots of positives” in the report and crediting the Prolific Offender Suppression Team (POST) for the positive decline in property crimes.
According to the statistics, comparing 2016 to 2017, auto theft was down 16 per cent, break and enters - both business and residential - were down 44 per cent while other break and enters were down 33 per cent. Also on the decline were theft from vehicles,down 38 per cent, domestic violence was down 11 per cent, violent crimes down seven per cent and property crime down 24 per cent.
The only category to see a rise, of 16 per cent compared to 2016 figures, was mental health act incidents.
Crawford said the rise in numbers isn’t actually an increase in cases, rather an indication that RCMP are creating more files and documenting individuals more effectively.
“It’s a more accurate representation of what we have been doing all along,” he said.
Mayor Randy Hawes asked Crawford how the six new RCMP officers, hired in the past three-and-a-half years, have impacted the crime statistics.
Crawford said a large portion of those six officers helped to create POST, which has had a “significant cause and effect on property crime.”
“We can actually see when certain people are in custody it (number of property crimes) goes down and when they come out, it goes up,” explained Crawford.
The staff-sergeant stressed that the public needs to report any crime they see.
“If you report it, then we are accountable for it. ‘What did you do about it?’ It gives us a chance to answer that versus if you don’t tell us then we can guarantee nothing will happen.”
Road Safety:
According to the report, Mission Detachment Traffic Services put an emphasis on distracted driving enforcement in 2017. As a result, there were nearly 2.5 time more tickets written in 2017 compared to 2016.
There was only one fatal crash in all of 2017 compared to 10 fatal crashes in 2016.
Other stats included 242 seatbelt violations (11 more than 2016), 748 speeding violations (227 more than 2016 including 51 excessive speeding/impounds), 246 tickets for use of an electronic device while driving (145 more than 2016), 20 impaired driving (17 more than last year), and 149 roadside prohibitions (14 more than 2016).
Council had questions about driving while under the influence of marijuana and what would happen to illegal marijuana operations once the new law came into effect legalizing the drug, but Crawford said he couldn’t answer those questions until they see “what the legislation is actually going to look like.”
Other statistics:
In 2017, the Mission RCMP received 13,709 calls for service in the Mission District compared to 14,688 in 2016. If you include calls for the outlying provincial areas, those numbers rise to 15,515 calls in 2017 and 16,353 in 2016.
In 2017, the Mission RCMP lodged 625 prisoners, compared to 745 the previous year. They also performed 2,712 criminal record checks (2590 in 2016), obtained 510 digital fingerprints (493 in 2016) and processed 1,103 disclosure requests (1054 in 2016).