Central Okanagan Crime Prevention Coordinator Roy Morgan.

(ROB MUNRO / iNFOnews.ca)

West Kelowna has by far the lowest crime rate of the five largest cities in the Thompson-Okanagan.

There are many possible explanations for that but one contributing factor is likely its very active Citizens' Patrol.

“It’s very hard to say what we deter and stop happening because the majority of crime in the areas I cover are criminal opportunists,” Roy Morgan, the Central Okanagan’s crime prevention coordinator, told iNFOnews.ca. “They’re looking for unlocked doors, looking for people who leave things out in their yards and stuff like that.”

The Citizens' Patrol he runs includes Lake Country, Peachland and West Kelowna but not Kelowna.

Those three communities have some of the lowest rankings in the crime severity index that matches the number of police calls with the seriousness of those calls.

Lake Country is at 57.7, Peachland at 59.4 and West Kelowna is at 81.9.

In contrast, the crime severity index in Kamloops is 135.3, 140.3 in Vernon, 141.9 in Kelowna and 200.6 in Penticton.

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

Kamloops had a Citizens on Patrol program but that stopped with the onset of COVID, Sandro Piroddi, crime prevention officer for the City of Kamloops, told iNFOnews.ca.

“It’s just a matter of our staffing levels,” he told iNFOnews.ca. “We don’t have a very big volunteer base as well. We just don’t have the staff level to start recruiting yet. Hopefully that will happen in the fall.”

That city’s first priority is to get its speed watch up and running.

Kelowna does not have a Citizen’s Patrol program and no one seems to know why.

The RCMP told iNFOnews.ca they’ve been told it’s up to the city. Colleen Cornock, crime prevention supervisor for the City of Kelowna, told iNFOnews.ca it’s an RCMP responsibility.

Penticton and Vernon both have Citizen's Patrol programs but neither coordinator responded to iNFOnews.ca’s request for information.

Given the stats, a citizens' patrol alone is not a solution to all crime, since Vernon and Penticton have high crime severity index ratings, with Penticton’s being one of the highest in the region.

It could be that there are some lessons to be learned from how things are done in West Kelowna and other parts of the Central Okanagan.

Each of Morgan's 60-plus volunteers go through an orientation to learn the basics of the program and to determine their areas of interest, whether that be speed watch or going on patrol.

Newcomers are paired with veterans – some of whom have been volunteers for more than 30 years – for on-the-job training.

“It’s all about education and awareness,” Morgan said. “It’s not about enforcement or confrontation or anything like that. They are just eyes and ears and a visible deterrent for any criminal opportunist who is thinking of getting up to no good in the areas that they patrol.”

The program has four marked cars and volunteers have strict instructions not to become involved.

“They have the same rights as any member of public but they have direction from me that they don’t do anything that will put them in danger,” Morgan said.

Citizens’ Patrol is a far cry from so-called “vigilante” groups that have sprung up recently in Penticton, Kelowna and Kamloops.

READ MORE: Kelowna RCMP say to leave prolific offenders and crime enforcement to them

“It is strictly an observe-and-report program,” Morgan said. “It’s mainly driving around in hot areas and being a presence.”

In all his years in crime prevention – 12 in Vernon and the Central Okanagan following 18 years as a British police officer – he’s not had anyone try to get involved on the street.

Morgan does not keep statistics on the success of the program.

Volunteers are equipped with iPads and an RCMP program so they can check licence plates of suspicious vehicles which has helped recover several stolen vehicles, although no record is kept of those successes.

And the deterrent factor is, of course, hard to measure.

“I know, from interviewing hundreds of criminals over the years when I was in England – and crime is crime wherever it is in the world – that criminals tell me that they were deterred from doing something because the saw a Neighbourhood Watch sign in the street,” Morgan said. “They knew the people there had a bit of extra training, from people like myself, to report suspicious activity, or there were dogs or it was lighted or there’s an alarm system advertised or camera system advertised on a home or a business.”

He's also in charge of the Neighbourhood Watch program which has 135 “captains” who are “eyes and ears for the RCMP."

Keeping in regular email contact with them gives Morgan access to 3,500 homes which help him get a reading for what’s going on in the communities he serves.

He also does a lot of public speaking and will visit victims of crime to help them not become repeat victims.

“The most important thing for me in my role is community engagement,” Morgan said. “It is getting residents to get involved. People want to help make their community safer.”

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