The Victoria Police Department’s crime-solving rate is one of the worst in the country, a Statistics Canada report released this week shows.
The department’s "clearance rate" or proportion of crimes solved by police for 2008 was 18 per cent, well below the national average of 37.6 per cent.
Victoria police was ranked in the bottom five for clearance rates, along with four other B.C. RCMP detachments, in Burnaby, Coquitlam, Langley and Richmond.
Released testerday, the report compared police departments serving regions of 100,000 people or more and measured how effectively they solve crime, which usually means laying a charge.
For the first time, Statistics Canada weighted the clearance rate based on seriousness of crimes. A homicide solved by police, for example, affects the clearance rate more than a petty theft.
On a national level, police are solving crime at the highest rate in the last decade, according to the report.
Saanich police had a clearance rate of 28 per cent, which was slightly higher than Vancouver at 27 per cent. The Codiac Regional Police in Moncton had the highest weighted clearance rate in the country at 46 per cent.
But a University of Victoria criminology professor raised some alarms about how accurately police forces’ clearance rates can be compared or used as a measure of efficiency.
"[Clearance rates] don’t have anything to do with the effectiveness of the police force," said Jim Hackler. "Because we don’t know the factors around police reporting."
For example, Hackler said, overall assaults are largely influenced by minor assaults, which are reported sometimes but ignored other times.
In the case of burglary, if there are no suspects and little chance of solving the case, some departments won’t even record the crime, he said. How meticulously crimes are reported can depend on a variety of factors, such as the officer’s call load, Hackler said.
Victoria’s demographics result in some crimes that are tough to solve, said Victoria police spokesman Sgt. Grant Hamilton, pointing to low-level crimes committed downtown by street people or drug dealers.
Often, the victims don’t co-operate, he said.
"The solvability rate is tough on those."
Provincial law also requires the Crown to approve a charge put forward by police, Hamilton said, which makes it more difficult to charge someone in B.C. than in provinces like Ontario, where police can lay the charge.
The department cleared nearly all its homicides in 2008, Hamilton said, except for the beating death of 52-year-old Billy Lupaschuk on Swift Street in October 2008.
Solving the Lupaschuk killing was hampered by a lack of witnesses.
But Hamilton said improving clearance rates is a priority for Victoria police, adding that it’s part of the department’s strategic plan.
kderosa@tc.canwest.com
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