Supt. Brian Hunter says crime is down, but he's not celebrating

Photo: City of Penticton live stream

Supt. Brian Hunter at Penticton council Tuesday, addressing second quarter statistics.

Crime in Penticton year over year is down, but Penticton's top cop isn't celebrating. 

“By no means is this a let’s clap our hands together good news story,” Supt. Brian Hunter told city council Tuesday while presenting his second quarter crime report. 

“The are a lot of victims of crime in this community and not for a moment do I have my pom poms in the air.”

Numbers are way down in many areas when compared to the second quarter of 2019 — issues like auto theft, shoplifting, and break-and-enters showing especially steep drops — but Hunter said not to let the numbers lend a false sense of progress or forget about the crimes still happening. 

He pointed out that this quarter included the heart of the pandemic, when many shops and businesses were closed and people told to stay home, as well as another potentially contributing factor: CERB. 

“There’s definitely more money in the community with some of our more vulnerable clients," Hunter said. "Some of them have identified to bus that they are in possession of this CERB money."

While he stressed that not all individuals with with addiction and mental health issues commit property crime and theft, it is a common way to fuel an addiction. With money in their pockets, some who may normally be resorting to those acts have not needed to. 

That isn't a cause for celebration, either. 

"It's a major crisis folks, and it’s a medical crisis," Hunter said. “You want the ultimate solution? The ultimate solution is treatment and rehabilitation."

He expressed support for decriminalizing drugs for personal use and for funding for mental health and addictions treatment that could eventually lessen the need for policing, mentioning the "defund the police" movement. 

"The term defund the police, a lot of folks automatically go to' Whoa, whoa whoa, we need more police here,'" Hunter said. 

"Start funding the services that these clients truly need and eventually you may not need the police involved as you did before."

Hunter explained his officers are spending a lot of time dealing with health issues which could be redirected toward "proactive policing," meaning surveillance of known criminal, pulling over drunk drivers, curfew checks for criminals out on bail and the like, which he says is the real way to reduce crime. 

"Right now I can tell you we’re trending about 10 to 12 per cent proactive time which means there’s about six minutes an hour that our members have to do that," Hunter said. 

That said, Hunter was happy to report several large search warrants executed during the quarter, and without giving specifics, said firearms and stolen property were recovered in large numbers. 

He also pointed to the encouraging statistic that domestic violence is down 23 per cent year over year. 

"There was a theory running when the pandemic hit … that this type of violence might increase," he said, but that didn't happen. 

Moving forward, Hunter has a focus on stopping known criminals before they re-offend, having hired an expert reserve constable whose specialty is crime reduction and prolific offenders. 

"My focus is on holding these folks to account."