Rocky View County (RVC) has completed a policing survey in response to citizen concerns over rural crime.
The survey, which closed Feb. 15, garnered nearly 2,000 respondents, and was intended to help the RCMP better understand the issues and concerns of county residents.
“We’ve had a strong response to the survey,” said Grant Kaiser, RVC manager of communications. “Rural policing is clearly an area of importance for many county residents.”
While the results won’t be shared with the public just yet, RVC Coun. Dan Henn said the survey came after RCMP spoke to council at its last priorities and policies meeting. Henn said he is hoping the survey will lead to strategies that will help reduce rural crime rates.
“(RCMP) are very aware of the rural crime that has plagued the county but are limited by the resources they have and policies they have to abide by.” Henn said. “I think they’re between a rock and a hard spot.”
Since 2010, crimes within the county have increased to 1,100 from 700 in 2014, according to Alberta’s latest crime statistics. The trend is not unique to the county, in Cochrane crimes jumped to 3,044 from 1,129 in the same time period.
Though the survey is indicative of RVC residents’ interest in further rural crime watch, it won’t necessarily result in more RCMP staff for the time being, but might result in the bolstering of rural crime watch programs to add more “eyes and ears” for the RCMP.
“I think they’re looking for alternatives to adding members, which would probably involve maybe a co-ordinated rural crime watch,” Henn said. “In a perfect world we add people until the problem went away, but that’s kind of unreasonable. It’s pretty expensive to add members.”
The survey comes on the heels of the Alberta Provincial Rural Crime Watch Association signing an official partnership with Alberta RCMP.
“We understand that in order for the RCMP to police our communities effectively, we need to take an active role in educating our neighbours and watching each other’s backs,” said Trevor Tychkowsky, president of Alberta Rural Crime Watch.
The Town of Cochrane has its own rural crime watch established under the umbrella of Alberta Rural Crime Watch.
