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Prince Rupert crime up, but severity drops

Police-reported crime in Prince Rupert in 2015 rose slightly, reveals reports from Statistics Canada.
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A slight rise in police-reported crime was reported in Prince Rupert for 2015.

Police-reported crime in Prince Rupert in 2015 rose slightly, reveals reports from Statistics Canada. But the city dropped from twelfth highest in crime severity nation-wide in 2014 to seventeenth place last year.

RCMP Sgt. Dave Uppal of Prince Rupert is pleased with the five-spot drop in the crime severity index (CSI), which is an annual measurement of the severity of police reported crime and the volume of crime per 100,000 population.  “I think that means that we are doing a good job here. At the end of the day we’ll continue to do our job of policing the community but we also need the assistance of the public. We encourage the public to come forward with their concerns,” he said.

Provincially, Prince Rupert ranked seventh in the crime severity index and the city experienced a five year low in 2013. The CSI then climbed slightly in 2014 and again in 2015.

 

“It could be one or two prolific offenders causing all the crime that can lead to an increase in crime stats,” Uppal said.

Statistics Canada tracks the police-reported crimes for the federal government to understand which areas of the country have increasing crime and what the severity of the crime is. The crime rate and CSI increased by five per cent in Canada from 2014 to 2015 as a result of fraud, robbery, homicide and breaking and entering.

The top violations in Prince Rupert were 755 incidents of disturbing the peace, 580 incidents of mischief, 485 incidents of violent criminal code violations, 270 incidents of theft under $5,000, 240 incidents of assault that caused little to no physical harm to victims and 201 incidents of offences against the administration of the justice, which is failure to appear in court, breach of probation or to comply with an order.

The total drug violations were 163, up from 137 in 2014 but down from 176 incidents in 2013. Incidents in the possession of cocaine also jumped from five incidents in 2014 to 24 in 2015 but the distribution and trafficking of cocaine dropped from 21 incidents to five.

There were 2,772 violations in 2015, up from 2,587 in 2014.

The CSI for British Columbia and Prince Rupert saw a small increase of 3 per cent from last year. Williams Lake topped the index out of 303 cities with a population greater than 10,000 despite a six per cent decrease in its CSI.

By the numbers, Prince Rupert’s CSI was 160.92, ahead of Prince George at 149.87, Terrace at 139.73 and Kitimat at 70.97.