Crime down during pandemic, police data shows

The latest Vancouver Police Department statistics show a drop in six key crime categories during August compared to the same month a year ago.

The biggest improvement came in the theft-from-auto category, which fell from 1,445 incidents in August 2019 to 788 in August 2020, five months into the COVID-19 pandemic.

For the same period, assaults across Vancouver fell from 462 to 405, robberies from 67 to 51, sexual offences from 49 to 48, mischief from 418 to 391, and weapons incidents from 130 to 98.

The statistics used by the VPD come from PRIME-B.C. (Police Records Information Management Environment), the information system used by police agencies across B.C., including 13 municipal forces and 135 RCMP detachments.

“It is the only multi-jurisdictional police records management and computer-aided dispatch system covering an entire province in Canada, and has been described as unique, leading-edge, and a model for sharing police information in North America,” according to the organization's website.

PRIMECorp, the organization that manages PRIME-B.C., is governed by a 10-member board of directors.

The Vancouver statistics show that in the neighbourhood of Strathcona — where a tent city was established in Strathcona Park over the summer — assaults, weapons offences, mischief, thefts from auto and sex offences were all down between August 2019 and August 2020. The only increase was in the robbery category, which went from nine incidents to 10.

Last month, a man was assaulted and discovered hours later in the Strathcona Park tent encampment, and residents living by the camp held a protest saying they were fed up with inaction by civic, provincial and federal politicians.

Crime went down in all categories in Vancouver's Downtown area and the West End. VPD figures for July 2020 compared to July 2019 show the same crime-reduction trend.