Members of Powell River RCMP detachment continue to make presentations and gather ideas on what initiatives the public would like to see them focus on this year.
Staff Sergeant Andy Brinton and Sergeant Rod Wiebe consulted with a number of groups, providing a picture of criminal activity in the community.
Brinton made the presentation to City of Powell River council during its committee of the whole meeting, March 20.
Last year the detachment identified four key areas: traffic, overall crime reduction, youth and aboriginal policing.
Based on the feedback received the current four areas will remain as this year’s focus.
The detachment will continue to identify a traffic concern or project area each month and target it through public awareness campaigns and increased enforcement with support from units from Vancouver Island, said Brinton.
Powell River does not have a “youth problem,” and he anticipates the detachment will continue to focus on maintaining a positive relationship with the town’s youth and take steps to engage them with relationship building.
“Crime reduction is probably the biggest area we focus on,” he said. “We have a group of members in our office that have formed a group which assesses crime status in areas and individuals, which has been pretty successful.”
The police have “a really good relationship with the first nations community and would not define it as a problem area,” said Brinton, adding that stronger relations can still be built.
Statistics for crime, in most areas, show a reduction. The largest drop is in break and enter crimes where numbers for break-ins to businesses in the city dropped from 29 incidents in 2012 to five in 2013. Break-ins to homes also dropped in the city from 70 incidents in 2012 to 38 in 2013.
Fewer drivers were charged with impaired driving in 2013, though Brinton said it was because the police are compelled to go with the new immediate roadside prohibitions (IRP) process over using the criminal code. This resulted in an increase in IRPs in the city from 53 in 2012 to 84 in 2013 and from 19 to 28 in rural areas.
The city saw an increase in traffic warnings from 914 in 2012 to 1,167 in 2013 and the regional district saw an increase from 43 to 66.
In the city there was an increase in drug-related offences from 130 to 155 and in the regional district an increase from 70 in 2012 to 107 in 2013.
