By Geoff Smith (@smithco on Twitter)

LPS sees good news in lower violent crime rate

Jul 25, 2017 | 12:15 PM

LETHBRIDGE – Is Lethbridge a safe city?

Overall, crime was up in 2016, according to numbers released by Statistics Canada. But violent crime was down eight per cent, and Deputy Chief Scott Woods of the Lethbridge Police Service says that’s a reason to be optimistic.

“Especially after a couple of years we’ve had, the last couple of years particularly with the murder rate,” he said in an interview. “But we are still seeing things that are happening within the city that are concerning when it comes to violent crimes. But yeah, we certainly are happy to see it drop for sure.”

“We know that a lot of those property crimes are fuelled by people’s drug habits, in order to obtain things that they can liquidate for cash in order to purchase drugs.”

 

– Deputy Police Chief Scott Woods

Woods said a record year for murders in Lethbridge in 2015 had a major impact on that year’s numbers, adding they get good information when looking at year-to-year numbers but also want to focus on longer-term trends.

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For example, property crime is on the rise and Woods said there are two major factors that typically contribute to that.

“One is the recession we’re in,” he explained. “We know that historically that tends to increase some of those offenses that are related to property.

“And I think obviously the opioid/drug problems that we’ve seen increase significantly within Lethbridge and also the province of Alberta have led to that increase as well. Because we know that a lot of those property crimes are fuelled by people’s drug habits, in order to obtain things that they can liquidate for cash in order to purchase drugs.”

Woods described Lethbridge as a safe community in the grand scheme of things. He pointed to the clearance rate, which shows police in Lethbridge are above the provincial average in solving crimes.

For Woods, a move toward evidence-based policing means they will get as much specific information as they can out of the data and identify and target problem areas and types of crime.