Half of British Columbians fear for their safety, survey suggests

Less than one month before voters cast their ballots in the provincial election, a new poll of British Columbians found half of respondents fear for their safety in their own communities.

The Research Co. poll of 1,200 people was conducted for Save Our Streets, a community safety organization.

"When the statistics say that 50 per cent of all British Columbians feel unsafe in their communities, that should be a head-snapping wake up call to the politicians about the survivability of downtowns throughout the province,” said Clint Mahlman, chief operating officer of London Drugs and co-founder of Save Our Streets.

Fifty-eight per cent of people surveyed said they feel the level of criminal activity in their communities has increased over the past four years.

In Vancouver and Surrey, the province’s two largest cities, police report crime is actually down through the first six months of this year compared to last.

"Unfortunately, crime is very, very underreported," said Surrey city Coun. Linda Annis, who also serves as the executive director of Metro Vancouver Crime Stoppers.

"The stats right now, particularly in Surrey, show that many aspects of crime are down. We know, in fact, that is not the case."

According to Simon Fraser University criminology professor Martin Andresen, Annis is partially correct about crime reporting rates.

"They have been stable over this past while. We don't have anything to suggest otherwise,” said Andresen.

According to his data, crime has been underreported for decades, so that shouldn’t significantly impact the trends from one year to the next.

He says over the past 10 years, there has been a slight uptick in crime rates, but crime is still nowhere near peak levels experienced in decades past.

"There's been a shift into poorer areas within the city when it comes to violence,” said Andresen. “So, we're seeing upticks in the poorer areas, the ones that have been hit hardest by any shrink of the economy."

For voters casting their ballots with public safety in mind, the difference between perception and reality when it comes to crime rates may not matter.  

The survey was conducted online from Sept. 9 to 12 among 1,200 British Columbians, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.