New Westminster has seen a three per cent increase in Criminal Code offences in the first eight months of the year and is on track to have its first increase in raw numbers in the last four years.
According to crime statistics released at Tuesday night's regular police board meeting, New Westminster has seen the slight increase in total offences committed in the first eight months of the year, as compared to the first eight months of 2011.
June and July saw a slight increase in the number of offences committed - a two per cent increase in July and eight per cent in August - and, to date, the city has seen 3,576 offences committed.
In comparison, all of 2011 had 5,237 offences, a six per cent decrease from the 2010 number of 5,538. 2009 had 5,721 offences and 2008 was the high-water mark for the past five years, with 6,106 offences committed.
The biggest increases came in the number of robberies, where the first eight months of 2012 has seen a 26 per cent increase in robberies over the same period in 2011.
According to Insp. Dave Jansen, who presented the numbers on behalf of the New Westminster Police Department, that increase is easy to explain.
"We experienced a lot of robberies at the beginning of the year, and one person really kicked those numbers up," said Jansen. "Our increased numbers had a lot to do with this one individual."
After police concentrated their efforts on this person, the robbery numbers have gone down in each of the last three months.
Also showing an increase was the number of assaults in the city, with a six per cent increase during the first eight months of 2012, as compared to 2011.
On the positive front, both car thefts and thefts from auto decreased markedly, with 36 per cent and 11 per cent decreases respectively during the first eight months of this year, as compared to 2011.
Jansen said this was an encouraging trend, especially since many other parts of the Lower Mainland are seeing increases in these two categories.
"Our agency has been very pro-active in attending to any theft from vehicle call," said Jansen. "Even if 25 cents is stolen from your glove box, we will attend to it and we've even sent our ident team to dust (for prints in some instances)."
Jansen said doing this for even the smallest theft from auto may lead to clues that help the police take down a prolific offender.
Chief Const. Dave Jones said while the overall numbers are slightly up, people need to be cognizant of the city's rising population.
"These are raw numbers and there is no provision to relate it to population increases in the city," said Jones, who added that provincial crime stats are now stated in crimes per 1,000 people. "Our population is growing so much and perhaps it's time that we rethink how we present the numbers."
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