A drop in crime rates is good news for Vancouver businesses, but partnerships and continued vigilance remain key to ensuring the trend continues.
According to the Vancouver Police Department’s 2011 annual report, the incidence of crime in the city fell 3.5% in 2011 compared with 2010.
Property crime, which accounts for nearly half of all crimes in the city, also fell 5.4% last year. The steepest declines were in vehicle thefts and thefts from autos, whereas the number of break-and-enter offences and arsons jumped last year.
The Stanley Cup riot contributed to those increases last year, but experts agree that more can still be done to reduce the number of B&Es.
“Burglaries are a big problem in Vancouver; they’ve always been,” said Mike Jagger, president at Provident Security. “It’s just easy.”
He noted that many businesses could be doing much more to protect themselves from burglars. For example, a key tactic is “five-minute-proofing” a business or home.
“That means, you want to make sure it would take a burglar at least five minutes to get to the most important stuff you want to protect,” Jagger said.
“The challenge is, most businesses – and homes – aren’t even close to that. It takes nothing to break into the front door, and the alarm systems are typically set up for a very long delay time.”
Business owners should also ensure they have the most appropriate and effective combination of physical security, alarm systems and camera technology to deter burglars.
“Most people don’t understand what they need or what they have is not doing anything until they have a negative incident.”
The relatively small increase in security presence offered from the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association (DVBIA) has been effective in mitigating theft in the downtown core.
According to the DVBIA’s annual report, the six loss-prevention specialists in its program have resulted in between 500 and 600 arrests per year and more than $100,000 in property being recovered from shoplifters.
Strengthening partnerships that have been created since the organization launched its own loss-prevention program 13 years ago is one of the contributors to the program’s success.
“They work really closely with loss-prevention people located in individual department stores, with other security professionals, and we liaise really well with the Vancouver Police,” said DVBIA executive director Charles Gauthier. “I think all that factors into reducing the opportunity for would-be criminals, but equally importantly, we are able to make arrests of individuals committing crimes.”
While having more security cameras is useful in the courtroom, having the manpower on the ground has been very effective in recovering stolen property quicker.
“A retailer recently had three pairs of sunglasses stolen, and the total value was $1,500. But they returned those items and were able to arrest the individual,” Gauthier said. “Having cameras catching someone after the fact is not as effective as catching someone just having finished the crime.”
Gauthier said the program has continued to garner member support year after year. He added that expanding the program would probably increase the arrest rate.
“Unfortunately, we’re a very rich target area in terms of crimes being committed, and I hate to say it, but if we hired more [loss prevention specialists], the number of arrests probably would go up,” said Gauthier. “But I think the only way we’d possibly expand is if we had other financial support or partners to join us.”
