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Vital signs of trouble

The Squamish Chief looks at the community's report card

The Squamish Community Foundation’s 2014 Vital Signs report released this past week is a wonderful tool for visualizing the state of our community in an immense variety of areas.

But like a troublesome spot on a patient’s x-ray, it highlights a clear problem for Squamish when it comes to crime. Our property crime rate of 5,286 crimes per 100,000 population in 2013 is a whopping 68 per cent above the national average and more than 15 per cent above the provincial average. That’s despite a year-over-year drop of 3.4 per cent from the previous year and an impressive 37 per cent decline from 1998.

The drop sounds good; sadly, the gap between Squamish’s property crime rate and the national average has actually increased in that time. In 1998, the national property crime rate was 5,696 per 100,000 – Squamish’s rate of 8,428 was 48 per cent above the national average. That means that while the total number of property crimes has fallen in Squamish by more than one third in the past 15 years, the national crime rate has fallen nearly twice as far, making the gap between the local average and the national average even greater.

That would be cause enough for concern if we appeared to be doing something about it. But the number of police officers at our community’s disposal tells a different story – it’s 25 per cent below the national average. In real terms, that means if we were anywhere else in Canada, we would have eight more police officers in our town – an increase of 32 per cent.

What could our RCMP detachment do with eight more members at its disposal? We’d leave that to the experts, but it doesn’t take an expert to suggest confidently that there would be less crime in our community.

Each of the Vital Signs report’s sections has a list of suggestions of “How you can help” at the bottom of the page. Under “Public Safety”, this list includes: “Organize neighbourhood watch”; “Be a strong role model to youth”; and “Help alleviate poverty and address mental health issues.”

All worthy and noble goals. But we think one needs adding: “Advocate for more police officers.”

That’s a vital sign worth changing.

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