As the City of Richmond and Richmond RCMP continue to assess how to improve an ailing Block Watch program, crime stats for the first quarter of 2016 have shown relatively little change compared to last year.
Overall, property crimes have risen 8.4 per cent, with 774 reported incidents. From that subtotal, the most prevalent crime has been theft from cars, which has seen a 33 per cent spike over last year, from Jan. 1 to March 31, according to Richmond RCMP statistics.
Over this time, police have stepped up their campaign of issuing notices on vehicles that are susceptible to auto crime — just over 10,000 notices have been issued. Shoplifting has also seen a spike, while residential break and enters are down across the city.
Richmond’s overall crime severity index, as reported by Statistics Canada, is average across the province and slightly above average when compared to Canada.
While Richmond continues to experience relatively low rates of violent crime, the first quarter of 2016 did see a 27 per cent bump in incidents such as robbery and assaults.
