PROPERTY crime plummeted while violent crime increased in West Vancouver last year, according to the West Vancouver Police Department's year-end report released Monday.
Violent crime rose 10 per cent in 2011 with property crime declining 19 per cent compared to 2010.
Drug offences rose 15 per cent in 2011. The WVPD faces a more difficult job in 2012, according to Chief Constable Peter Lepine, because part of the immediate roadside prohibition program was declared unconstitutional by the B.C. Supreme Court last year. The program gave officers the authority to issue immediate 90-day driving suspensions on drivers whose bloodalcohol registered more than 0.08.
"It was an effective and efficient alternative," said Lepine. "What used to take us 30 minutes to do . . . will now take between seven to nine hours."
The WVPD issued 293 immediate driving suspensions in 2011. Police work will become further complicated by the reduction of court officials, according to Lepine. With only one full-time judge working in West Vancouver by May of 2012, the likelihood of charges being dropped may rise.
"It becomes a cycle of catch and release," Lepine said. Despite a justice reform initiative, "It will get a lot worse before we see any advancement," according to Lepine.
Based on a five-year average, the crime rate declined substantially in West Vancouver, including a 61 per cent drop in both vehicle theft and robbery. The major exception to the crime rate's downward trajectory in 2011 was sexual offences, which rose by 57 per cent, with 16 reported cases in 2011.
There were 157 incidents of assault in West Vancouver in 2011, constituting a nine per cent jump based on the five-year average. Those figures, particularly in the case of domestic violence, may be misleading, according to Lepine. "I'm not sure the violence is actually increasing, I think the reporting is increasing," he said.
Incidents of residential break and enter decreased by 37 per cent in 2011. Incidents of commercial break and enter dropped by 68 per cent. West Vancouver had the second-lowest crime rate in the Lower Mainland in 2010. Port Moody's crime rate was the lowest.
