Prince George, B.C. – Several candidates in the civic election are pointing to crime as a major issue for the City of Prince George, especially in the downtown, yet the stats would indicate crime is on its way down.

The numbers from Stats Canada indicate clear reductions in overall crime in 2007 (down by 7% overall) and violent crime had dropped by 13.4% over numbers recorded in 2006.

With 1,185 Break and Enters in 2007, that was just shy of a 7% increase over 2006. On the positive side, in 2007 auto theft was down by about 5% and the numbers recently released by ICBC show there has been a further reduction in 2008.

Homicides were also down last year.  In 2006 there was one death in the City limits, and there was one homicide in the city in 2007. This year, that number has increased with three deaths in the core (all gang related) and one death in the rural area.

A look  at the pin maps which volunteer John Pellizzari has been keeping up to date for the past 7 years at the Community Policing Centre in downtown Prince George show the downtown is not necessarily the area that is seeing the worst of the Break and Enter increases.

Pellizzari places a pin on the site of every Break and Enter, a black pin for a break in at a commercial site, a blue or green pin for a residential B and E. It’s a way for people to get a visual idea of what is happening in the City. He says that in May and June of last year, there were about 4.5 B & E’s per day. This year, that had slipped to 3.5 a day in the same months and in September/October it is down to about 1.5 per day. He expects the overall Break and enters to see a drop this year.

What is clear from the pin map is that downtown is NOT the centre of the activity, that break and enters happen all over the city.

The locations of the most violent crime this year were in various areas of the city.   There was a shooting  in the downtown area in which a 19 year old  was  wounded ( August 8th shooting), but there was a murder  outside a restaurant at 18th and Highway 97 and there were two people killed at a home on Webber Crescent.   All of those crimes were gang related.