A breakdown of police statistics in Victoria shows that a spike in the type of crime that has increased the most in 2020 began long before the pandemic hit B.C. in full swing.
Data released by VicPD Friday afternoon show there have been 311 break and enters in Victoria from January 1 to July 31 2020, compared to 162 in the same period in 2019 and 152 in 2018.
This crime spike has long been attributed to businesses in downtown and the surrounding area being shut down and unstaffed due to COVID-19 lockdown measures.
See also: Crime stats from Victoria Police indicate rise in break and enters, but drops in other areas
“There are so many factors at play that make it challenging to come to conclusions on what is driving crime,” said Cst. Cam MacIntyre in a phone interview with Victoria Buzz.
“I do believe that when it comes to property crime there’s no question that these are crimes of opportunity. When there are closed businesses, criminals are going to take advantage of that.”
However, the month with the highest number of reported break and enter cases during the period of lockdown had one fewer case than in January 2020, months before the pandemic began having an impact on Canada.
Here’s a breakdown of the number of break and enter cases by month so far this year:
- January – 62
- February – 46
- March – 50
- April – 61
- May – 30
- June – 34
- July – 28
MacIntyre was unable to determine what caused the spike in break and enter cases in January, and noted that there were around 40 cases reported in December 2019.
The numbers do show, however, that there have been fewer break and enters each month after April as pandemic restrictions started to ease, with a sharp drop in May—when some businesses slowly started to reopen—and has remained steady ever since.
More statistics
The ‘calls for service’ statistics report from Victoria Police shows that crime overall has decreased by five percent in the first seven months of 2020 compared to the same time frame in 2019.
There are several factors that play into this, including impacts of lockdown measures.
“If you look at the numbers from today, shoplifting is way down—is that because stores aren’t open? Impaired driving per traffic stop is still the same, but there are just fewer drivers on the road,” said MacIntyre.
There were 630 incidents of thefts from January 1 to July 31 of 2020, compared to 863 theft reports in the same period in 2019, which represents a decline of 37 per cent.
Cases of fraud, indecent acts, and traffic suspensions saw minor drops year-over-year, while assaults, arsons, and robberies remained fairly stable.
The number of drug-related calls also saw a slight decline in 2020.
According to MacIntyre, VicPD as a department does not devote any resources to investigating simple possession of drugs by individuals. How calls regarding drug use are handled depend on the discretion of the responding officer.
The department focuses primarily on trafficking, which is what is represented in these statistics.
Limitations
The set of statistics released Friday represent crimes as reported by members of the public, and are categorized as “calls for service”.
Therefore they do not provide an idea of how many of these calls resulted in an investigation, subsequent charges, and/or conviction.
On the other hand, these calls for service may also encompass more than one type of crime, which often becomes apparent only when police arrive on scene. However within the limits of the statistics report, they are counted under one category.
“Say I go to a break and enter: it’ll say ‘Break and Enter’ in calls for service. After an investigation, I might learn that it was a Theft, Assault, and Weapons call, but it stays ‘Break and Enter’ in the calls for service report” says MacIntyre.
“When I write my full report, it is going to get classified as a Break and Enter, Theft, Assault, and Weapons. If we ran ‘calls for service’ for August 2020 and full Crime Reports for August 2020, it will give us two different numbers.”
A full Crime Report was not readily available upon request as MacIntyre says it takes longer to pull those records for each file.
“We are working to improve our processes right now, to increase transparency and have data more readily available on our website.”
With files from Tim Ford.
