Business is booming for criminals in the Central Okanagan.
Between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31 2023, Kelowna RCMP dealt with 57,000 files, placing the detachment at the eighth-highest workload in the province, Supt. Kara Triance said during a Monday City Council Meeting.
That dubious distinction was fuelled by a few different factors, one of which is a rise in fraud cases.
In 2023, reported frauds increased 41 per cent, driven by tap schemes and phone or online scams, Triance told councillors.
“We saw a lot of different types of frauds come in — some of the grandparent frauds, frauds where individuals are phishing for information, you might receive a text message saying, ‘could you please verify your address?'” Triance said. From there, vulnerable people find themselves separated from their hard-earned money.
Kelowna RCMP prioritizes these files with added educational seminars delivered to the community.
“To learn more about this rapidly escalating issue, we encourage the public and media to visit the Canadian AntiFraud Centre as the national leader in crime prevention, education and technology,” Triance said.
As far as caseload distribution, geography is also making a difference.
Triance said in 2023, 20 per cent fewer files were generated in Kelowna’s downtown area while 31 per cent more files were generated in the Rutland area, compared to 2022.
Triance said that may not mean that one area is more crime-ridden than the other, but perhaps shifting police resources from downtown to Rutland may have caused area residents to comment more.
“Sometimes when you run a project you’ve also established relationships, and you’ve developed a trust in confidence in police reporting, and so you start to see files generated,” Triance said.
Throughout the region, mental health-related files grew by 28 per cent since last year, while mental health apprehensions rose 23 per cent. Overdose responses also grew by 62 per cent.
“So we have four police officers assigned to our integrated crisis response team, and they’re paired up with nurses, we have three positions for nurses. They provide a call response to all individuals who are in crisis with experiencing mental health crisis or some of those substance use calls,” she said.
Other stats offered in the report show assault-related files were up seven per cent, sex offence files rose by 27 per cent, and calls related to robberies were down 26 per cent.
Not all the news was dismal, however. Triance said that one of the biggest takeaways from Monday’s year-end report to city council was that break-and-enter files were down significantly compared to last year.
In 2023 there were 482 business break-and-enters compared to 867 incidents in 2022.
“Noteworthy, the number of reported break and enters declined regionally and provincially in 2023, though Kelowna experienced a significantly greater reduction,” reads the report.
In Kelowna, the reduction was 44 per cent. The Southeast district saw a decline of this kind of crime in the area of 20 per cent and in B.C. it was only eight per cent.
Also, throughout 2023 there was a 15-per cent reduction in overall property crime compared to 2022, though offences against people are on the rise, according to the latest statistics from Kelowna RCMP.
While rising crime figures usually trigger a call for more resourcing, Triance explained the issue is more nuanced than that.
“We must be adequately resourced, so that the workload is at a place where our files generated matches our staffing levels,” she said.
Triance said one of the other things they look at is what levers of change individuals in the community have to advocate for the changes that are needed.
“So we talked today about traffic cameras and the use of technology, we’ve talked about education and conversations and support to public service agencies supporting those who have been impacted by trauma,” she said.
“In the past, we’ve talked about the data coming out of the Alberta Prison Project and that those who are committing crime later in life often have early trauma and childhood experience with violence impacted by crime. So let’s work early to support and wrap services around and change the trajectory for those who have been impacted by crime to help them transition into pathways of health and wellness and stable lives.”