A Decline in Break and Enters Lowers Canada's Crime Rate

The number of property Break-and-Enters has seen a significant drop by 35% in Quebec and 19% in British Columbia, the fastest decline in the country.  With a constantly growing population, less crime is been seen in the province of British Columbia.

 This chart shows the reduction of break-ins in BC when compared to past five years.

Out of all the cities, Vancouver was seen to have the greatest decrease of Break-ins in the province of British Columbia and police say, It's also because they spend a great deal of time trying to identify the burglars/offenders and target them in an attempt to reduce the numbers of break-ins. 

Constable Brian Montague, the media relations officer at the Vancouver Police Department said, "He saw a 12% decrease in the number of residential Break-ins in the month of December(when Break and Enters are normally at its peak due to Christmas ), from 2012 to 2013."

Despite of the decrease in the number of Break-ins, there are perhaps some citizens resided in the outskirts of Vancouver, who are yet concerned about the safety of their neighbourhood.

Analyzing  the total break and enter crime numbers in Surrey, it was found that surrey itself showed a 14% increase in break-ins by 995 in 2013 to 1130 in 2014 and this rise in numbers is actually concerning for a lot of neighbourhoods located in the outskirts of Vancouver.

 Mahtab Janjua, a resident of Surrey, BC shares her personal story of a break-in at her house, where she felt unprotected despite of having an alarm system. She states, "Last year in December, there had been a break-in in my house while I was out of town. The burglars broke in and took their time to disconnect our alarm system. I found odd that the police actually arrived about 45 minutes from the time they were contacted by the alarm company, like they're not concerned about the citizens at all." 

Constable Brian Montague said in this regard that the delayed arrival of police in this case is unknown but the Vancouver Police Department is doing its best to reduce crime numbers by looking into enforcement and education.

He says, "Education is one big component of trying to reduce property crime. 25 - 30% of residential break-ins in Vancouver show no signs of forced entry so we try to educate property owners about what they can do to protect themselves including simply locking windows and doors."

He further states, "Our officers are trained in Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CEPTED) and we will spend time, one-on-one, with both home owners and businesses to evaluate and explain how they can target-harden their property."

Although the outskirts of Vancouver show a spike in the numbers of break-ins, the chart below indicate a decrease in the reported number of incidents of Break-ins overall in BC.

Rishi Gill, Criminal Defense Lawyer. Photo by: Huda Manzoor

According to Rishi Gill, a criminal lawyer based in Vancouver, most  break and enters are committed by drug offenders. 

While exploring the reasons behind most break-ins,

 He states, "Usually Break and Enters are tied to economic conditions. why do people steal? Mostly people steal because they're drug addicts/ offenders."

According to Gill, mostly drug addicts attempt to break in because it's getting harder and harder for everyone to survive in expensive places like Vancouver and the main reason why there's more crime in the impoverished areas is the circumstance they live in. 

Nevertheless, Gill asserts that the crime rate of people been charged in the city is way down. 

He argues, "Vancouver is becoming expensive so there's less crime because there's not many properties in the area. In the downtown eastside, where there's more crime. the police is not charging but rather using different strategies and alternatives like diversion, stitch-cone; where you have to give all the evidence to the accused."

In addition to these strategies, the VPD also has been putting effort into a very active Block Watch program to prevent Break and enters. This is a program about neighbours acting as visual reporters where they report on suspicious activities taking place in their neighbourhood to the police.

Constable Brian Montague advice's the residents in the meantime to lock their doors and vehicles and report on all the suspicious incidents around their neighbourhood.

Update # 3

My story aims to uncover:

• The falling crime of break-ins in BC over the past five years
• The reducing amount of people been charged for such crimes

This chart shows the reduction of break-ins in BC when compared to past five years.

Mahtab Janjua, a resident of Surrey, BC shares her personal story of a break-in despite of having an alarm system protecting her house.

"Last year in December, there had been a break-in in my house while I was out of the town. The burglars broke in and took their time to disconnect our alarm system. I found odd that the police actually arrived about 45 minutes from the time they were contacted by the alarm company, like they're not concerned about the citizens at all."

Deputy Cheif Constable, Adam Palmer says, "These homes are monitored and targeted ahead of time, so it makes easier to break in after assessing the schedule of the homeowners."

Although, the fallen numbers tell us that the law has been doing a great job locking up criminals behind bars, but, a reduction in convicting criminals on such crimes tend to prove the entire statement wrong.

This chart shows how many people are actually convicted for such a crime. Although BC hasn't seen much of a change but even a slight reduction depicts the future of break-ins in BC.

Mahtab Janjua agreed in the end that the policing has perhaps improved since past year. She says, "The policing has actually improved and that there has been a movement, who've done effort building new programs on a base level. "

One question that I cannot answer is "what months are mostly at the peak for breaking and entering." "I would also like to know how such crimes are processed in a criminal justice system." I think I will most preferably request an FOI request to get into the depths of this problem,

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Update #2

1. A one- or two-sentence tentative lead for your final story, based on
   the most interesting thing you've found in your data so far. You can
   change your lead later on if you find something more interesting in
   your data.

 Breaking and Entering counts as one of the largest offence in Canada. Home is considered to    be the safest place for an individual to live and, the citizens should have the right to feel    protected in their own house. However, British Columbia has seen a significant decrease in  break-ins when compared to other provinces.

2. A link to an Excel spreadsheet showing a small slice of your data that
    backs up your lead and could be used as the basis for a Datawrapper
    chart.

   https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bx1L0TBeuCyrZFh3OXlaQ0FWNk0/view?usp=sharing

 
 3. The name of one expert you could interview for your story. This can
     be an academic, activist or someone from the agency that produced
     the data. But it must be a named individual, with job title included.

 I plan to interview Alexander Ejsmont, who serves as the criminal defense lawyer in  Vancouver. He has defended many Break and Enter cases and holds extensive experience in  this area. 



 

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Update #1

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The Story that I intend to do an in-depth analysis on is breaking and entering/home invasions in BC. I picked this story looking at the high rates of breaking and entering in BC when compared to other provinces such as Alberta.

Although, there has been a decline in the rate of break-ins in BC since past five years, but the fact that the it has remained almost the same over the past two years raises many questions. I have also picked this story in order to investigate some useful ways of protecting homes.

I think many residents of BC will find this data analysis convenient as it might not only help them feel safer in the community but also help provide some assistance in solving such crimes. This data will also help narrow the numbers of breaking and entering in homes without a security alarm and those homes that are protected with an alarm system.

I found the dataset from Statistics Canada: Incident based crime statistics, by detailed violence and police services. This data was classified in terms of geography and violations and was collected from the years of 2009 to 2013.

The dataset can be found at:

http://www5.statcan.gc.ca/cansim/a47

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/legal50c-eng.htm

The questions that I’ve collected through this dataset are:

-What areas/neighborhood are mostly at target for break-ins in BC?

-What time do most break and enter events occur?

- What sites are most targeted: apartments or homes?

-How many of the targeted sites are with or without an alarm system?

- How many break-ins incidents are reported to police?

- How many offenders are charged every year and how many of those are underage?