WEST Vancouver is one of the safest places to live in the province.
Thats according to new crime statistics for 2011 released by Statistics Canada this week.
Those statistics show West Vancouver is tied with Comox and second only to North Saanich in being relatively crime-free among cities with populations over 10,000.
The statistics measure both the crime rate and the type of crimes committed.
The District of North Vancouver was ranked as the next safest community in the province.
Crime rates in all three North Shore communities have been falling dramatically for the past decade. In 2011, crime in West Vancouver was at its lowest rate in the past 10 years, down 43 per cent from the highest point in the decade, in 2002.
Crime rates in the city and district of North Vancouver were also the lowest theyve been in a decade, after falling 40 per cent from a high in 2004.
The data reflect a national trend of falling crime rates. Crime across the country is now the lowest its been in 20 years.
Weve been on a roll, said Paul Brantingham, a professor of criminology at Simon Fraser University, who lives in Deep Cove. Its an imperfect roll, but things are a lot safer now.
Between 2010 and 2011, the number of crimes reported across the country fell six per cent. The crime severity index which measures how serious those crimes are was also 26 per cent lower in 2011 than it was a decade previously.
Both the incidence and severity of violent crime was also down by four percent between 2010 and 2011 the fifth year in a row that the severity of violent crime decreased.
Part of the falling crime rate can be explained by demographic change, said Neil Boyd, another criminology professor at Simon Fraser University.
Most crime generally is committed by young men, he said. Back in 1977, when the national murder rate was three times what it is today, there were a lot more young men in the population.
Thats likely part of the reason North Shore communities are relatively safe they are also relatively old. The last Census figures showed 25 per cent of West Vancouvers population is 65 and older.
People in high-income communities like West Vancouver are also usually more wedded into the social system and connected to the rules of society, said Brantingham.
According to research, criminals are more likely to commit crimes in their own neighbourhoods or very similar neighbourhoods than in wealthy communities they arent familiar with, he said.
In West Vancouver, the rate of overall crime was down almost 14 per cent between 2010 and 2011. Property crime was down over 20 per cent while the rate of violent crime including one homicide was up seven per cent.
In the District of North Vancouver, rates of both overall crime and violent crime were down, by seven and 14 per cent respectively.
The City of North Vancouver has the highest crime rate of the three North Shore communities, with double the rate of other municipalities.
Thats not surprising in an area that is high-density, commercial and connected to downtown by the SeaBus, said Brantingham.
Even so, rates of both crime and violent crime were also down in the city, by over six per cent. The rate of property crime in the city was down by 15 per cent.
Another reason crime is down is that police forces have changed their tactics in the last decade, said Brantingham. These days police focus more on the very small percentage of repeat offenders responsible for the majority of crime.
Both Boyd and Brantingham said media reports about sensational crimes are part of why the public still thinks crime is rampant, despite the statistics.
If theres a horrible thing that happens 10,000 miles away, CBC and CTV and Fox news are all telling you about it in great detail within minutes, said Brantingham.
That kind of a diet makes the public feel that crime is reeling out of control, said Boyd.
In reality, he said, the crime rate in 1890 in B.C. was probably about two or three times what it is now.
