Vernon sees decline in crimes involving street entrenched population

Crimes involving the street entrenched population in Vernon dropped by nearly 30 per cent in the first three months of the year.

The Vernon-North Okanagan RCMP’s policing report for the first quarter of 2022 (January to March) shows officers responded to 209 crimes involving street entrenched people.

That’s down from 296 files in the previous quarter, and 272 files over the same months last year.

Meanwhile, statistics for the RCMP’s Opioid Pilot Project have skyrocketed. The RCMP uses four categories to track the pilot, which was launched in 2018: number of cards given out with information on addiction services; number of referrals to services made; number of educational videos shown; and number of Naloxone kits provided.

In the first quarter of 2021, the RCMP handed out 19 cards, made eight referrals, showed zero videos and provided five naloxone kits. Whereas this past quarter, they issued 149 cards, made 54 referrals, shared three videos and provided 153 kits.

Overall crime statistics indicate there were 4,473 calls for service to the Vernon RCMP, 1,401 of which were for a criminal offence and 826 for property offences. While total calls and calls involving property crime were about the same this time last year, calls involving criminality are up nine per cent.

Among specific crimes, the largest riser was residential break and enters with 33 calls so far in 2022, up from 12 at the same point last year for an increase of 175 per cent.

In Coldstream, the year’s first quarter saw 284 calls for service — 71 for Criminal Code offenses and 40 for property crimes. That represents a 15 per cent drop in total calls, though criminal and property files were about the same.

Dispatched calls for Vernon and Coldstream totaled 4,400, a slight decrease from the 4,466 calls received in the first quarter of 2021. Self-generated calls were also slightly down, from 739 to 732.