A City staff report coming to Kelowna City Council Monday aims to ramp up advocacy efforts to senior levels of government for more action on prolific property offenders.
While a recent survey found citizens feel safe overall in Kelowna, they consistently expressed concern about property crime, identifying it as their top crime problem for Council and police attention.
Since 2016, the City added 47 RCMP members, 40 support staff, and nine Bylaw Officers.
Today, the RCMP contract budget is 84 per cent higher than it was in 2016.
“Prolific property offenders are responsible for an overwhelming portion of property crime incidents, and present extreme pressures on finite police resources,” said Kelowna Regional RCMP Officer in Charge, Supt. Kara Triance. “This is particularly true for these offenders, and those who are persistently committing crime.”
In December 2021, RCMP Southeast District reviewed 15 offenders who had 1,039 negative contacts with police in the first 11 months. One offender was responsible for generating 346 RCMP files since 2016, an average of more than one per week for six years.