Oliver has seen a jump in crime, but compared to its neighbours (Osoyoos, for example), the overall crime rate is relatively low. File photo
Oliver’s crime rate increased significantly in 2014 but remained fractionally lower than the last decade’s average.
Statistics Canada recently released fresh data on police-reported crime rates and the numbers show Oliver continuing to buck the nationwide declining trend.
Police-reported crime rates measure the amount of crime reported in an area relative to its population size. It’s calculated using the number of incidents per 100,000 people, meaning crime rates can be compared across communities of different sizes.
In Oliver that number was 9,087 in 2014 (which translates into 797 total incidents), up from 7,519 in 2013 (651 incidents).
Although that marks an increase of 21 per cent from one year to the next, Oliver’s 2014 crime rate remained less than one percentage point below the 11-year average.
That 11-year span is significant because it represents the number of consecutive years Statistics Canada says crime rates across the country have decreased.
The organization reports that police-reported crime across the country decreased by three per cent from 2013 to 2014, marking the 11th straight year the rate has gone down and the lowest recorded rate since 1969.
Oliver hasn’t followed that declining trend.
Police-reported crime rates in town have fluctuated wildly over the same period, rising as high as 12,653 in 2006 and falling as low as 6,006 in 2010.
The Oliver RCMP did not respond to requests for an interview by the Chronicle’s press deadline, but Oliver Mayor Ron Hovanes said he is concerned with the numbers, particularly the 21 per cent increase from 2013 to 2014.
He said Oliver has recently experienced a “rash of crime,” particularly thefts, that has bumped up the town’s crime rate. The RCMP has targeted those incidents and put several “almost prolific offenders off the street for a little while.”
While active individuals can cause crime statistics to vary wildly in small towns depending on if they’re in jail or on the streets, Hovanes said those offenders aren’t the only ones contributing to Oliver’s crime rate.
“I think it’s a combination of a number of things. There’s the low-level criminals, there’s the revolving door criminals that when they’re released all of a sudden there’s a real spike in activity … and then we’ve been targeted more recently to a large scale by the professional element,” he said.
He said that while he believes the RCMP is doing the best job it can given its resources, council expresses its “concerns and frustrations” to police on a regular basis.
“Is crime an issue? Yes. Is it a concern? Yes. And I think that we [council] do everything we can to share all of our concerns with the police. This is a period of time we’ve gone through, and while I hope not to see any more huge spikes, I don’t really think crime is going to go away.”
While Oliver experienced a bump in crime from 2013 to 2014, compared to its neighbours its overall crime rate is relatively low.
Adjusting for its larger population Osoyoos still experiences more crime than Oliver, and its police-reported crime rate rose from 11,296 in 2013 to 12,259 in 2014, a nine per cent increase.
Penticton has historically had the highest crime rate of the three communities over the past decade, but recorded slightly fewer incidents than Osoyoos in 2013 and 2014. Its police-reported crime rate rose from 11,692.19 in 2013 to 11,848.25 in 2014, an increase of less than two per cent.
The data in Statistics Canada’s report also illuminates crime trends manifesting across the country. Those trends are largely positive ones, including a decline in the number of violent crimes reported (a five per cent decrease in 2014), and a decline in the number of youth accused of crimes.
One disturbing trend is a rise in the number of reports of sexual violence against children, which increased by about six per cent. According to Statistics Canada that increase was primarily a result of incidents of luring a child with a computer.
For more information on the report, or to examine more data, visit the Statistics Canada website at www.statcan.gc.ca.
By Trevor Nichols
