Members of Powell River RCMP detachment have been making presentations to organizations and groups over the past month, gathering ideas on what initiatives the community would like to see them undertake.
Through consultation last year, the detachment identified four initiatives: traffic/road safety; youth; crime reduction/community safety; and aboriginal policing.
This year Staff Sergeant Andy Brinton and Sergeant Rod Wiebe are consulting with a number of groups, providing a picture of crime activity in the community and asking what residents would like them to focus on this year.
They have made presentations to the City of Powell River’s and Powell River Regional District’s committees-of-the-whole, Powell River Chamber of Commerce, ratepayers’ associations, senior and youth groups and Tla’Amin (Sliammon) First Nation.
The detachment has 24 members stationed in Powell River and two on Texada Island. Eighteen of the members in Powell River are funded through the city and the remainder are funded either by the province or first nations. “We don’t separate them, it’s just not efficient,” Brinton explained. “We work on a watch system. Usually there would be three to four members at any given time on a watch, 24-hour coverage.”
As well, three members are dedicated to plain clothes work, Brinton said, which involves investigation and detective work. One member, Constable Chris Bakker, is dedicated to community policing and another member is dedicated to first nations work.
Overall, Powell River is a safe community, said Wiebe, one of the safest he has worked in.
Under traffic, the detachment tries to have a quarterly enforcement campaign on different topics. While there is a focus on enforcing speed limits, Brinton said, there is a big emphasis on safety in intersections and seat belt compliance, initiatives that are aimed at preventing collisions or, if there is a collision, to reduce harm by using seat belts.
Because of last year’s initiatives, alcohol-related crashes were reduced by 19 per cent from 2010 to 2011, Wiebe said. The number of injury accidents was up 20 per cent, but the number of property-damage accidents was down 20 per cent. On average, there was an 11 per cent decrease in collisions.
As for youth initiatives, every school in the area is assigned a police officer who remains in contact about programs and projects and most of the members are involved in volunteer activities with youth, Brinton said. “We don’t have a big youth crime problem in this community, so we look at it more from a positive impact on youth.”
Under crime reduction, a committee in the detachment meets regularly to identify trends, including crime types and areas, Brinton said, and also offenders. “Then we come up with initiatives to target that type of thing. In the fall we had a bit of an issue with residential break and enters. As a result of some initiatives that came from this committee, we were successful in putting two very chronic offenders away and our residential B&Es dropped off.”
The RCMP look at a few crime types as a barometer to how things are going, Brinton said, such as motor vehicle accidents, impaired driving, break and enters, theft of and theft from cars and assaults. “The bottom line is we’re fairly consistent this year compared to last year. There’s no big change.”
Brinton said there are two types of assaults. Domestic violence is fairly constant in the community, he said. The second type is violence among a certain group of people who are generally involved in the drug trade because they have drug and alcohol problems or, in some cases, mental health problems. “The average, middle-class working person in Powell River is probably totally unaware that this is going on,” Brinton said. “But we do find we end up with a lot of our time policing a certain demographic in the community.”
Based on the feedback the members receive from talking to community groups, the detachment will set its priorities for this year.
Powell River Crime
Crime Type Powell River City Powell River Rural Total
2010 2011 2010 2011 2010 2011
Impaired Driving 169 112 66 53 235 165
24-hour suspension/IRP 85 69 19 15 104 84
MVI-Injury 24 25 14 21 38 46
MVI_Property 82 56 48 29 430 85
Traffic Tickets 315 236 118 101 433 337
Traffic Warnings 1,036 1,308 265 370 1,301 1,678
Total Contacts 1,351 1,544 383 471 1,734 2,048
B&E Business 18 21 4 5 22 26
B&E Residential 61 75 16 23 77 98
B&E Total 103 108 34 38 137 146
Theft Auto 35 31 20 12 55 43
Theft from Auto 112 68 19 19 131 87
Theft Other 378 325 128 80 506 405
Shoplifting 51 57 0 0 51 57
Mischief 252 243 84 119 336 362
Assaults 150 174 96 78 246 252
Sexual Assaults 22 31 5 10 27 41
Drugs All 114 146 190 83 304 229
Cocaine Offences 28 30 16 24 44 46
Marijuana 69 92 167 49 236 141
Liquor Act 188 189 36 27 224 216
