The Surrey RCMP’s latest crime stats indicate violent crime dropped by seven per cent in the third quarter of 2020 compared to the same period last year.
That’s from 2,203 cases down to 2,056.
And the total number of Criminal Code cases dropped by 18 per cent, to 9,994 from 12,195. The number of homicides dropped from six to one, robberies from 103 to 98, sexual offences from 123 to 122, assaults from 1,088 to 1,072, and property crimes dropped from 7,304 to 5,483.
“It could be as a result of us shifting our resources,” Corporal Joanie Sidhu said. “What we do, when we look at our stats on an ongoing basis, and we see where we need to re-allocate resources in order to bring crime down in those specific areas.”
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The pandemic “certainly could be a factor,” she noted in the general decrease in crime. “But recently we did increase the size of our units such as our gang enforcement team as well as our mobile street enforcement team. So I think that plays a part in it as well.
“This is a small snapshot of what our stats were like in the last quarter, but when we look at our crime in the larger picture you see over the past decade crime has actually been decreasing in Surrey. This isn’t a new trend but it is something we’ve seen in the last decade.”
Year to date, in 2020 compared to 2019, violent crime dropped six per cent, from 6,355 cases to 5,992 and property crime also dropped by 13 per cent, from 20,495 to 17,808.
All told, the Surrey RCMP recorded 31,114 Criminal Code offences in the first three quarters of 2020 compared to 35,041 during the first three quarters of 2019, making for an 11 per cent decrease.
tom.zytaruk@surreynowleader.com
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