Image Credit: Charlotte Helston
February 27, 2023 - 12:35 PM
Kelowna RCMP handled just over 60,000 calls for service in 2022, a 6% drop from the year before.
But some crime categories, particularly robberies, arson and business break-ins saw increases as high as 43%.
Calls for service in the city’s downtown core jumped by 12.6% to 8,327 from 7,394, according to a report going to Kelowna city council today, Feb. 27.
Of all the calls for service, 2,897 had a mental health component, a drop of 6.7% from 2021, but overdose calls climbed by 9.7% to 34 for the year.
Theft with violence, which includes robbery, increased 43.3% to 109 cases from 76.
“This trend of robbery occurrences was observed across the province,” the report said, adding that a change in how such crimes are logged is part of the reason for the dramatic increase in Kelowna since robberies with violence were likely underreported in the past.
Business break and enter cases jumped 26.2% to 857 while residential break-ins dropped 17.2% to 245.
“Kelowna RCMP again began targeted enforcement of priority repeat offenders resulting in a significant reduction in these types of (business break and enters) from August through to the end of the year,” the report says.
Arson files increased 27% to 146 cases in 2022.
Auto theft increased 8.3% to 564 cases, shoplifting charges were up 17.1% to 1,653 cases while bicycle thefts increased by 17.7% to 612 cases.
Some of the biggest crime category declines, other than residential break-ins, were in mischief cases, down 18% to 1,848, and theft from motor vehicles, down 14.1% to 2,126 cases.
Domestic violence cases dropped 24.5% to 713 cases but sex offences were up 5.6% to 187 cases.
Crimes against people dropped by 2.2% in Kelowna last year while they increased by almost 1% in B.C. as a whole.
Processing and accessing child sexual abuse material increased by 67% in Kelowna to 70 cases last year. Such crimes were up 21% nationally.
“In Fall 2022, Kelowna RCMP secured significant staffing transfers into the detachment which re-stabilized our strength in officers on the road,” the report says. “The RCMP continue to monitor the volume of calls for service that, while dropping slightly in 2022, as compared to the previous year, remain well above the number of calls for similar- size communities within the province.”
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