A 30 per cent drop in the number of people imprisoned by Prince George RCMP isn’t being driven by any one specific trend, officer-in-charge Supt. Darin Rappel told city council at its Monday, Jan. 13 meeting.
Rappel was on hand to deliver a year-in-review on policing in the city in 2024.
The number of prisoners of the local RCMP increased from 2,950 in 2023 to 3,858 in 2024 — a five-year high.
Some of it is due to the work of the Mounties’ downtown safety unit being proactive in finding people wanted for arrest. Another batch is due to busts made by the Problem Oriented Policing Team.
Some of the prisoners are repeat offenders as well as people receiving help from local social services for whom prison is not the best place but keep ending up back there.
Up to two-thirds of the RCMP’s prisoners are intoxicated from one substance or another, Rappel said, with many of them on opioids. Currently, only one guard watches cells overnight, which the officer in charge called an operational risk that hiring a second guard would help with.
There was about a 15 increase in charges forwarded to the Crown from 1,680 in 2023 to 1,928 in 2024. Again, Rappel said some of that is due to the work of the Problem Oriented Policing Team. and the downtown safety unit.
However, some of the increase is due to the partial rollback of the decriminalization of illicit drugs and a corresponding rise in drug charges.
Property offences were said to be trending downwards in all categories, especially mischief.
When it comes to other police files, Rappel said there’s been a decrease in calls related to mental health crises. This, he said, is because of more resources being available locally to help people before the police are called to intervene.
Looking specifically at downtown Prince George, Rappel said the Lower Patricia Boulevard encampment — Moccasin Flats — has dwindled to just a few people.
While the RCMP will be available to assist the city if there’s a court-ordered shutdown of the encampment, Rappel said he wasn’t sure whether they would be needed when and if that point is reached, especially with the new transitional housing facility opening nearby on Third Avenue.
Again referring to the rollback of decriminalization, he said officers have had some additional work dealing with drug offences seen on downtown sidewalks.
Last July, a new mental health crisis team called the Peer Assisted Crime Team was launched in Prince George. Soon, Rappel said, that team’s working hours will be increased to 12 hours per day.
Overall calls for service in downtown Prince George decreased in 2024 compared to 2023, but both years were higher than the number of calls in 2020 through 2022.
Addressing a downwards trend in mischief charges in the downtown, Rappel offered a couple of potential reasons. One is that there’s a fatigue among people who are tired of reporting these crimes. He also theorized that it could be due to the availability of housing and services improving some potential perpetrators’ circumstances.
Use of a mental health app called HealthIM by police and Northern Health have helped reduce the number of arrests of people who need mental health services. Rappel said the province has taken notice of successes seen with the app and its use is being rolled out to other communities in BC’s north district.
Another program used by local RCMP is ReVOII — the Repeat Violent Offending Intervention Initiative. Rappel said he would like to return to council in six to nine months and provide an update on it.
Late last year, local Mounties started wearing body-worn cameras. While Rappel said he believed the use of the cameras would help resolve public complaints about officers more quickly and serve as a source of evidence that can be sent to Crown counsel, having to use the videos and manage the files is a source of extra work for the police that is still being adapted to.
In local schools, Rappel said his officers were going to step up the number of workshops it gives to local schools on the dangers of organized crime and drug trafficking. He said in one instance, trafficking led to a death of a local student last year.
After Rappel was done presenting, Mayor Simon Yu asked what role the police will serve when BC formally adopts involuntary care for people dealing with addictions or mental health crises.
Rappel said the RCMP won’t decide who is placed in involuntary care, but that they have a baseline of information that can be used to help inform decision-makers.
At the last meeting of 2024, city council approved a pilot program to help downtown businesses install security cameras.
Rappel said he’s looking forward to the cameras being installed, though he noted that his colleagues in Penticton have noted that their cameras don’t so much serve as deterrents to crime as much as sources of evidence.
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