IMPACT officers arrest a car thief                                                                     photo courtesy IMPACT

Prince George, BC – It has been 10-years since the Integrated Municipal Provincial Auto Crime Team (IMPACT) first started chasing car thieves and what a difference a decade makes…

In 2003, 70 people a day reported their vehicle stolen to ICBC.  Last year, only 17 people reported a stolen vehicle on an average day in BC.

In Prince George, ICBC says there were 83-percent fewer vehicle thefts and 91-percent fewer vehicle break-ins in 2013 compared to 2003, when auto crime numbers in BC reached an all-time high.

The table at right (courtesy ICBC) shows the number of cars stolen each year in our city, over the past 11 years.  (The 2013 counts are preliminary, as final statistics are expected in August.)  Vehicle thefts were down by seven from 2012 – from 74 to 67 last year – but the number of vehicle break-ins rose by six, from 73 to 79.  That's still a phenomenal drop from 2003's high of 890 theft-from-vehicle incidents reported to ICBC in 2003.

As part of its efforts to tackle auto crime, IMPACT introduced the BAIT car program in 2004.  "Over the past decade, IMPACT has become a model of how you deter and reduce thefts of and from vehicles by being focused, strategic, adaptable, and consistently driving home the message that if you steal any type of BAIT vehicle, you're going to jail," says BC Attorney General Suzanne Anton.  "The benefits of IMPACT to both road safety and people's pocketbooks are clear and continue to grow."

"Though we may be best known for our BAIT car program, its our enforcement team in the background who are the unsung heroes," says IMPACT's Inspector Peter Jadis.  "Ensuring our fleet can be quickly and easily deployed to address hot spots as they occur throughout BC.  We typically see notable drops when we target specific areas."

This past December the program introduced BAIT snowmobiles in southeastern BC, which resulted in a large drop in stolen sleds and four individuals being charged  in relation to two separate thefts.  Plans are afoot to bring the snow machines to our region.  "We are aware of snowmobiles being stolen up in that area," says Corporal Rob Stephenson.  "The program is mobile, I don't know if it's going to happen this year, but we are able to use them throughout the province."

This year, investigators at IMPACT plan to devote more resources to targeted enforcement, including larger scale auto thefts – theft rings running chop shops or doing vehicle cloning.  Inspector Jadis says some thieves are stealing vehicles simply for the value in the metal.  "A new car can be reduced to $200-300 worth of recycled metal, and that's something fairly new that we're seeing," he says.  "Ten years ago it may have been more joy riding or break and enters with stolen vehicles.  The policing environment is always changing."

Chart below shows the top 10 vehicles stolen in the North Central region   courtesy IMPACT