Geez, you pay an extra hotel tax in this town and your vehicles aren't even safe. Time to raise taxes even more!

I am all for to exterminate the low crawling
Scum in PG, can't even go out anymore, nevermind shopping. If we can't do that lets round them up and send them to Ellesmere Island for a Vacation.

If I must spend hundreds of dollars annually for security monitoring of my private residence it is not too much to ask hotels to do the same and have complete video monitoring of their premises and parking lots 24/7.

Soon there will be cameras everywhere, on every building and every lamp post. The cost of all that will be added on to our bills.

Boy, has this country ever changed in the last few years!

The scum runs amok while the law abiding folks are too afraid to go somewhere!

Scary to imagine what's next.

Security system or not, there were 16 vehicles badly damaged in two parking lots.... and nobody, not even hotel staff, saw or heard anything?

This is just one occurrence of many, but the crime in this city is truly getting out of control. I've lived here for 36 years and it just keeps getting worse.

they could of hired a security guard for 8 bucks a hour to patrol the area every 30mins to watch for people breaking into 16 vehicles

high end hotels,were is the security? now we really know how high end these places are!! somebody is keepin shhh

Watch your stuff around the hospital too, especially around emergency! It only took a 15 minute trip from my bed in the emergency room down to X-ray and back, for my $300.00 watch, which was left with my jacket, shirt, shoes etc. to vanish into thin air!! (Good thing I still had my pants on and my wallet in my pocket).
Leave everything of value you have at home if you can, before you go in, or send it home with a relative if you wind up having to stay a night or two --- or, if you have to leave your room, however briefly, always take your valuables with you.

Nobody wants to put these dudes in jail for a long term. Its too expensive, so they let them out, and if they rob us, well it doesnt cost the Government anything, and if we claim on our insurance (after the deductible) we end up paying higher premiums, so we pay for it anyway,.

If we test between 05-08 they take our car, and fine our ass off, we pay for police and a justice system to protect us, and they allow crooks to trash our vehicles, break into our homes, home invasions, armed robbery, assault, drug dealing etc;

Are we getting a **Bang** for our buck. I dont think so. The politicians are the people responsible for what is happening in this town and Province, make no mistake about it.

If they wernt spending billions on unnecessary infrastructre, roads, bridges, plus Olympics, Winter Games, and all these other BS projects, we might have some money left to build a few more penetentiarys and get this riff raff off our backs.

Outwest: You're bang on. We could spread food garbage all around the 'camp' so the polar bears would patrol it for us too. I think its just about time we, the citizens of this town do something about all these vehicle break-ins, home invasions, crack shacks and other assorted crimes becasue the way the "Laws" are set up now, the justice system certainly can't or won't stop it. Maybe we should take a page from the residents of Grand Manan and show some civil courage.

Are we alarmists?

How does this relate to crime being down?

What part of this is a bunch of yahoos whose main intent is vandalism?

How frequently have we heard about this type of targeted vandalism?

Is there some information out there that will give us a sense of perspective. Some relationship that is measurable over time to see whether the incidents are getting more frequent, or the reporting is getting more frequent or both or neither?

I keep getting this bits and pieces and I feel I do not have the whole story. Sort of like reading chapter 3 of a 10 chapter book.

BTW, what was actually taken from the cars? Was anything of value actually visible in the cars?

My car was broken into twice within a couple of months about 15 years ago in our driveway. In both cases the car was locked and nothing was visible. The rear seat window was broken to gain access. The glove compartment and console contents were spread all over the inside of the car. Some change for parking metres was taken as a few CDs in the console.

As it says in the report above, the damage was more than the loss of the content. The same happened along the street and in the neighbourhood according to RCMP.

AND, most important of all, there were no blogs like this to report the event nor any reports in the newspaper.

No posse of vigilantes formed to go after the probable kids to hang them when found. There were not threats and macho utterings of what our neighbourhood would do if the perps were found.

Has the level of crime changed, or has the level of reporting changed

I suspect that the level of crime and reporting has changed.

If we do not stop crime on the streets and in our driveways, and homes, then we are not going to stop it anywhere. We need an attitude change, when it comes to incarceration. I think that it is fair to say that if an individual is in jail, he is not committing crimes in the community.

I dont see jail time as a solution, unless it can be tied to some some or rehabilitation program.

The problem is, there doesnt seem to be a serious effort by anyone to actually solve the problem, so we continue to get more of the same.

1. Shoplifting is rarely prosecuted to the full extent of the law, and in many cases you are just banned from the store, or mall. This basically gives theives the *ok* to steal.

2. It seems that the laws that are prosecuted, or used the most are the laws that generate funds for the Government, and the Police. As an example the City of Prince George receives approx $1.5 Million per year from the Province as their share of money generated by speeding tickets, etc; While this helps to offset the cost of City Policing, it also shows that their is a consistant revenue stream to the City. There is no revenue stream to the City or the :Province by prosecuting criminals for crimes such as those being discussed in these posts. In fact there is a huge cost attached to putting a criminal through the court system, and incarcerating them. So to reduce the cost the Government avoids prosecuting, or at least heavy sentencing for lesser crimes.

3. The Government uses local facilities such as Activators, or St Patricks, as a means to get people out of jail sooner, if they go to these facilites as part of their release agreement. This then allows the less dangerous criminals to be housed cheaper, and of course makes more room at the prisons for people coming in. The problem is, is that this is a way to avoid building more appropriate jails, and to avoid additional costs. Im not sure if we have people from the prison system being sent to Baldy Hughes as part of their release agreement, but it wouldnt surprise me.

So part of the problem is the high cost of prisoner maintenance. The Government tends to spend money where it gets the most bang for its buck, like the Sea to Sky Highway, the Olympics, BC Place, etc; etc;.

4. We recently had some changes to City Bylaws in regards to pawn shops receiving goods etc; where they set up some kind of a reporting system to the Police. I have not heard anything in regards to what if any impact this had. Why is that??

they want these dudes free,they help with window and gift sales for retailers.lol!!

It's all about getting money to buy Drugs, maybe the Answer is to identify the Users, put them in Jail or whatever to break the Habit . I don't think it should cost us much to keep them , go back to the old, build Prison Farms and all Food they will produce no outside Food, grow it or else.
No TV or Internet, just Books to read, cant read learn how to. I do think some of them actually enjoy the Lifestyle of not Working and living of us! To many hanging around the Library Parking Lot waiting for a Car to break in , we park on the Street , I just hate to live that way, PG was a different Place 35 Years ago, Time to take it back!

So, if it is the high cost of incarcerating this folks that is leaving/keeping them out on the streets, it is time to reduce the cost of incarcerating them. I like the idea of locating the lock-ups way up north. Fewer guards needed. Those six by eight cells look like they could hold more folks than just one or two. Let them fight it out for the bed.

Palopu wrote: "We recently had some changes to City Bylaws in regards to pawn shops receiving goods etc; where they set up some kind of a reporting system to the Police. I have not heard anything in regards to what if any impact this had. Why is that??"

I suspect it is because like many of those kind of supposed solutions cannot be linked to the problems they are supposed to solve. There is no direct and immediately observable cause and effect. That is so often the case with what we are trying to change. We really do not know what will effect change.

Let us assume, for instance, that pawn shops were either knowingly or unknowingly accepting stolen goods. Let us assume also that as a result that process of fencing stolen goods was reduced or even shut off completely. Whoever thought that would reduce the need to access money through theft of goods was dreaming. Like water which simply finds another route when one route is closed, the stolen goods simply find another route. In fact, the new route might actually be an easier one for all we know.

What I would like to know is did we know

1. how much water (stolen goods) was flowing in the first place;

2. how much was flowing through pawn shops

3. what were the other routes stolen goods were flowing

4. how much stolen goods are flowing now

5. how much are flowing through pawn shops now

6. how much are flowing through other routes

7. what, if any, new routes have opened up.

Finally, like drugs,

1. who are the purchasers of stolen goods

2. who are the thieves that supply the stolen goods.

3. what is the relationship of stolen goods to drugs.

In other words, when drug busts are made of drugs that are intended for local sale, does the price of local drugs increase and, if so, is the pressure to steal goods increased?

And, how about the effect of the downturn in the economy. Do prices for stolen goods drop as a result. Do drug prices drop as well? Or do they stay the same and even increase and the volume of stolen goods need to increase in order to make the same amount of money?

We are told squat. There is no need to know. However, the key thing is, do the authorities actually know. I doubt they are that sophisticated.

http://hamptonroads.com/2009/01/statistics-point-increase-crime-during-recessions

A report which "suggests" that petty crime goes up during recessions ..... only a suggestion .... not proof positive.

This article is more an indicator of how little we know about such matters as far as I am concerned.

Notice that part of the cause of an increase may be due to cut backs on security preventative measures by both private and public forces.

I agree totally with you Outwest & my3centsworth. Prison Farms in the north, no tv, internet, etc. Grow your own food, read a BOOK! What a concept. These bums need to be 'punished' not 'pampered'. There should be no time off for good behaviour. Do the crime, do ALL the time!

I have a relative in the Hospital at the moment, so have been comming and going a lot. I can tell you where some of the down town crowd is hanging out. They need more security in the Hospital. I also think our City Council should be asking more questions??Every time the government dumps more of it's problems in Prince George, like the Baldy Hughes project that keeps getting bigger and bigge. WHAT HAPPENS TO THE DROP OUTS??WHAT HAPPENS TO THE PRISONERS WHEN THEY GET OUT OF OUR JAILS. Are these people sent back to where they came from?? But why would they want to go back, we service them very well. We even have needles on wheels in certain areas,that makes me sick. One feeds off the other. Our City Council and our Government Reps. need to get some Civil Courage, but what do they care they will retire in some nice place and all the riff raff will be in Prince George. How can we take back Prince George? Get some GUTS.

Find the theives, cut their hands off.

Oh for Chris' sakes, just catch 'em, try 'em, and if convicted shoot 'em dead and harvest their miserable carcasses for usable body parts. That's what China does, and if we want to be 'globally competitive' we'd better follow suit. They're literally worth more dead than alive. End of problem.

Stop pretending there's "jobs" out there for them, if only they could be motivated to seek them. As if a stint in some far north version of Devil's Island is going to be the motivator.

Haven't we got enough problems already just keeping all those that WANT to work, and are already motivated to do so, steadily employed? Or am I missing something here, when I read the official unemployment statistics posted just a day or so ago?

Would you, if you were an employer, want some graduate from a chain gang ~ a guy that had already broken the law knowing of the consequences, if he got caught, in our new "get tough on crime" world of the future ~ working for you? Sure you would, if you could get him cheap enough. But you'd still only be getting what you pay for. And, overall, his 'cost' still couldn't be recovered fully in 'price'.

The Muslim world isn't quite as advanced as all that. It's still largely backwards, and way more labour intensive. It just calls on the government's swordsman to lop a hand off the light fingered who exercise their criminal talents and get caught.

Dead waste financially, the Chinese would be aghast at that, but as a crime preventative measure highly effective.

Pretty hard to lay their little fingers on someone else's property again when they haven't got any hand to attach them to. Barbaric, you say? You who'd load up each jail cell with more prisoners than there are bunks, and let them fight it out? Must be someone else thinks so, too, we've still got troops overseas risking their lives trying to prevent such happenings right now.

We'll never fully understand all the motivations for crime. Statistics seem to indicate in any modern, industrial society it's more violent and more rampant wherever life has been made cheap. Crime, like suicides, rises in recessions. Is "getting tough" on it in that environment the cure? Short of executing those who commit criminal acts, preventing THEM from becoming a repeat offender, there doesn't seem to be much evidence it does.

It only seems to make the criminal all the more determined to elude capture, and even more willing to risk a violent death without any concern for how many others he takes with him, rather than be re-incarcerated and live in conditions he finds intolerable.

What's the answer? None we've tried so far, they've all failed, or are more morally unacceptable than anything else we might look at.

"Find the thieves." Now there is a challenge!!!!!!!

Remember, we have very few resources here to do that. And those we do have are all downtown and we are continuing to make the mistake of hiding the new building downtown.

We should be building the police statiion at the intersection of 16 and 97 for high visibility (sends out the message that when buddy makes one wrong move while in PG, WE will catch you!!)

Add a large "times square" type reader board with images of those who are being sought and those who have been convicted; crime stats; "WE'RE Numero UNO" tourist promo; provide tours to compete with pulp mill tours .....

I mean, let's get serious about tackling this issue.

"What's the answer? None we've tried so far, they've all failed"

They have all failed if the expectation is that no one will ever break a law.

However, when comparing countries with similar quality of statistics, there are certainly those who have higher crime rates than others. The USA stands out as one of the highest, especially when compared to the "punishment" they deliver and the number per capita they have in prisons.

Canada, on the other hand, has crime rates somewhere between those in Europe and the USA with considerably less incarceration. So we can surmise that being tougher on criminals is not what works best.

But hey, it sure feels great to those holier-than-thou members of our society. And, in the end, that is really what it is all about, isn't it. The more we put into jail, the more new criminals will be developed and the happier that holier-than-thou segment of our society will be.

We haven't yet tried the one thing that would deter criminals; work combined with punishment! In jail they sit on their asses and watch porn -- that is fact! If you don't believe me, do a stint in there.

We've outsourced so much to China, I think that we should outsource our prisons to China.
I'm sure we could save money and rehabilitation would take on a whole new meaning.

Talk about JOBS in Prince George,we have young people that can't find work and yes they have tried,I know of a story of a young person that took a job delivering food, the nice older person woulden't pay the BIG bill and the kid was on the hook.These people that are getting out of Jail and drug rehabs, are they sent back to their homes ? are we expected to take them in and give them jobs as part of the programe?? we have no jobs for the people living here.Our city council needs to start asking the goverment some questions.Our council needs some GUTS, we are in trouble.

Sounds like concerned local citizens getting an early start in keeping PG #1 NATIONWIDE. let's go PG. It's going to take a real outbreak elsewhere to top our crime rating.