The Williams Lake RCMP are keeping up a proactive policing approach when it comes to break and enters and theft from vehicles in and around the city.
Inspector Jeff Pelley says there has been a 118% increase in theft from vehicle offences up to the end of September with 148 reported incidents as opposed to 68 last year.
“We did see little bit more compliance of people removing valuables from the vehicle so that they’re not crimes of opportunity, but then we also continued to focus on a number of core offenders related to these types of offences,” Pelley said.
“Over the three week period we focused on 12 offenders and we’ve conducted a total of 29 arrests.”
Pelly says more than 27 charges have been submitted for crown counsel approval.
“A number of these offenders are under strict curfew and three offenders still remain in custody,” he said.
“And we have an outline of offences that we continue to focus on related to not only theft from vehicles, but break and enter to business, break and enters to residences, and all types of property offences.”
Property Crime Stats for January 1-September 30, 2018
- theft of vehicle has decreased 47%. Pelley says there have been 30 reported offences this year compared to 57 last year
- break and enter to residence has decreased 56% with 25 offences this year and 57 last year
- break and enter to business has increased 5%. Pelley says there were 44 offences and 42 last year.
“In addition to suppressing and enforcing violent crimes, we continue to focus on property crime offenders whether they are new offenders, offenders that have relocated here, or existing offenders that have been released from custody,” Pelley said.