Kelowna RCMP Supt. Kara Triance.

(CARLI BERRY / iNFOnews.ca)

Kelowna was one of the most crime-ridden cities in the country in 2021 and will prove to be right up there when the stats come out this summer for 2022.

That’s due in part to the city attracting two million visitors each year but it’s also due to the shortfall in some of the ways needed to cope with activities that even when they rise to criminal acts don't get offenders off the street.

For example, Kelowna city council was told this week that shoplifting increased by 20% in the first quarter of the year versus last year.

“There are studies that have shown these types of crimes, specific to shoplifting and fraud, are often aligned and tied to socio-economic factors and they are often pretty challenging for RCMP to prevent,” Kelowna RCMP Supt. Kara Triance told council.

Even if criminals are caught, there’s little that can be done.

“In my recent discussions with Crown council they have advised, absolutely, it is very difficult to proceed through a justice model with theft under $5,000 and shoplifting charges,” Triance said. “They are extremely difficult to prosecute based on current sentences and the temperature within the justice system.”

READ MORE: Kelowna likely to retain its ‘crime capital of Canada’ title

They’re not the only crimes.

She mentioned the case of a person with drug induced brain injuries who triggered 22 police files in three months. Most were for yelling.

Police met with the psychiatric team at Kelowna General Hospital who immediately released the person, saying they were not amenable to treatment and would not improve.

“Yelling is a criminal offence if it causes a disturbance,” Triance said. “It’s not a criminal offence to have a mental health issue and it’s not an offence to use a personal amount of substances. But when they are brought to the courts, there are no justice solutions for causing a disturbance. We dealt with numerous calls for service that day. They (the offender) are at their base line and that was the end point where there was no system to be able to address this individual when they’re caught.”

Another case was a person who does have a court-imposed care plan but refuses to participate so the police have spent hundreds of hours trying to help them navigate through the system, something they’re not trained to do.

A third example was a homeless person who triggered 56 calls in six weeks, including five in one night, mostly for making people feel unsafe downtown.

“That individual was moved from place to place and there were very few files that could support criminal charges,” Triance said. “What would really make a difference with that individual is a concrete connection with community and health support that could compel that individual into those programs and lead to a safe place to sleep and a better path.”

She noted the agencies offering programs are working from one grant application to another with no base funding to provide these services.

On the justice side of things, there is a community court where offenders who want to change their lives can be diverted from the criminal system into care.

“Kelowna Integrated Court is at capacity at 82 clients,” Triance said. “Kelowna Integrated Court only sits once a week at present and there is only one prosecutor at this time and they also have a separate case load and work load outside Kelowna Integrated Court that keeps them very busy.

She would like to see more days for the integrated court.

Another serious concern is an understaffed Crown prosecution office.

“I know from meeting with my partners at Crown they are absolutely at capacity, where they are taking as much as they can,” Triance said. “They have mentioned, on more than one occasion, that the workload is such that they do have to triage. So we do need more capacity. We need more capacity for not only our prosecution service but our court hours.”

In 2021, the City of Kelowna recorded 14,487 crimes per 100,000 people, one of the highest in the country but lower than Penticton at 21,604, which was the highest in the Thompson Okanagan region. Crime rate is based on Criminal Code offences other than drugs and traffic.

READ MORE: Penticton most crime ridden city in Thompson-Okanagan and much of B.C.

That same year the Kelowna metropolitan area had the second highest Crime Severity Index rating for the largest metropolitan areas in the country at 122.3, behind Lethbridge at 128.7.

The Crime Severity Index looks at the severity of crime based on the average sentence given for each crime. First degree murder, for example, has a weight of 7,656.16, according to a Kelowna RCMP email. Mischief, at the other extreme, has a weight of 29.44.

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