Stealing from cars made up 35% of all property crime in Vancouver last year

Vancouver Police have released year-end crime statistics for 2018 that they said shows a decrease in violent crime, but an increase in property crime, which they said is driven mostly by theft from vehicles.

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“Theft from motor vehicles is a big issue in Vancouver, especially downtown,” said VPD Sgt.  Jason Robillard,

He noted that 2018 saw 16.2% increase in the number of these types of crimes being committed, equalling a total of 14,598 incidents. In fact, theft of items from motor vehicles made up 35% of all property crime incidents in the city last year.

While police didn’t say what exactly was behind the reason for the increase, Robillard called these types of crimes “completely” preventable.

“We are asking residents of Vancouver and visitors to the city to not leave anything visible in their vehicles,” he said. “If you do, it will get stolen.”

The VPD said that property crime in general actually saw a decrease of 1.5% and there was was a decrease of nearly 11% in residential break-and-enters and a decrease of 9% in break-and-enter incidents involving businesses.

Citing a decrease in homicides, police said the violent crime rate decreased by 0.2% due to a decrease in homicides (15 in 2018 and 19 in 2017), bank robberies (29 in 2018 and 52 in 2017) and shots-fired incidents (19 in 2018 and 31 in 2017).

A complete list of all of VPD’s year end metrics are available on the department’s website.