Kelowna's top cop says he's proud of the job his officers have done in reducing crime in the city. Speaking during his bimonthly report to council, RCMP Superintendent, Bill McKinnon, says he's proud of the statistics that show Kelowna is bucking the national trend. Councillor, Luke Stack pointed to two stats in particular, calls for service and prisoners lodged, numbers which have been trending downward since 2008. "I look at the calls for service are going down and some of the prisoners you have lodged is going down. Should we be encouraged by this," asked Stack? "It looks like over three years we are seeing a trend of improvement. It looks like the trend is things are improving." McKinnon acknowledged crime is going down said it's due in part to crime reduction strategies initiated by the local detachment. "I credit our Downtown Enforcement Unit, our Target Team, working on prolific offenders to be able to take the people off the streets that are maybe going to do 72 break and enters," says McKinnon. "If I brought in a list of all the prolific offenders we've dealt with over the last year I can give you 75 of them. We know where they are, where they've been arrested and they're behind bars now." McKinnon says the numbers are down because police are able to deal with those few 10% that we deal with all the time. "At the same time we're a growing community," added Stack. "To see stats going down and we're growing. Put them both together, that's impressive."
While applauding the numbers, McKinnon also acknowledged his frustration with reports such as the one released recently by Maclean's magazine which ranked Kelowna as the sixth most dangerous place to live in terms of crime. "I actually called Maclean's because I don't know how we end up number six to be honest with you," says McKinnon. "I don't know what their methodology is in trying to determine it because when I looked at it, they only use the categories being homicides, sex offences, robberies and break and enters. The only one where we are in the top 15 is auto theft last year." McKinnon says he has yet to hear back from the author of the article. "I don't know what I'm going to do about that because I'm trying to find out what their methodology is and why we are ranked where we are." Mayor Sharon Shepherd offered to write a letter to the author on behalf of the city asking for an explanation. "Maybe if you were to do the same then we could at least put it in writing to them just to understand their gathering of statistics," says Shepherd. "People do use those as a mark as to where we stand as a community and I think it's important to understand how they are evaluating the stats."
While applauding the numbers, McKinnon also acknowledged his frustration with reports such as the one released recently by Maclean's magazine which ranked Kelowna as the sixth most dangerous place to live in terms of crime. "I actually called Maclean's because I don't know how we end up number six to be honest with you," says McKinnon. "I don't know what their methodology is in trying to determine it because when I looked at it, they only use the categories being homicides, sex offences, robberies and break and enters. The only one where we are in the top 15 is auto theft last year." McKinnon says he has yet to hear back from the author of the article. "I don't know what I'm going to do about that because I'm trying to find out what their methodology is and why we are ranked where we are." Mayor Sharon Shepherd offered to write a letter to the author on behalf of the city asking for an explanation. "Maybe if you were to do the same then we could at least put it in writing to them just to understand their gathering of statistics," says Shepherd. "People do use those as a mark as to where we stand as a community and I think it's important to understand how they are evaluating the stats."
No comments:
Post a Comment