Police budget up; crime rate down
Posted Feb 12, 2012 8:03 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
City council may have approved an increase in the police budget during last fall’s budget deliberations, but statistics indicate that crime in the city was down again in 2011.
The early numbers from Calgary Police Service find there were fewer homicides, sexual assaults, robberies, thefts, car thefts, home invasions and break and enters.
In all, crimes in which people were victims were down 7.5 per cent while property crimes decreased by 6.4 per cent.
A criminologist at Mount Royal University, Doug King, tells The Calgary Herald that the numbers amount to, “a pretty good report card for any municipal police service.”
But he also points out that the crime rate has been on the decline for several years.
But Steven Edwards, vice chair of the police commission, argues now is not the time to cut back in resources, claiming crime increases with cut-backs.
In late November, council gave the police service a $5-million budget increase at the same time other city departments were ordered to pare back their budgets.
