While property crimes climbed in the last quarter, Codiac RCMP street unit members were focused on illegal marijuana shops.
Superintendent Tom Critchlow says addressing illegal medical dispensaries took up a great deal of time.
“Obviously there was some pressures you know in the last quarter with respect to the illegal marijuana dispensaries, so we did a lot more work on that, which took away a bit of our ability to focus on our property crimes,” says Critchlow.
Critchlow was adamant stating the public was not put at risk by the shifting of police resources, saying they still had the ability to focus “through our frontline, and through our crime reduction teams.”
There were 1,517 reports of property crime in the first three months of 2018 as compared to 1,024 in 2017, marking a 48% increase.
Critchlow insists property crimes tend to ebb and flow naturally for several reasons including the release of prolific offenders from jail, or new arrivals on the scene.
“They’ve dabbled in crime, for example, and are now hanging around people that are actually doing it, or are responsible,” says Critchlow. “So they increase their activity, and then become, in our opinion, somebody that’s a target because they’re committing all these acts.”
Ross MacKay, a member of the Codiac Regional Policing Authority asked Critchlow at their last meeting when these numbers were presented, whether Codiac RCMP would review plans for the future, while admitting perhaps their allocation of resources was not the best plan.
Critchlow said that while reassignment of resources does have an impact, he says there was pressure to react to the dispensary situation.