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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The crime rate may have fell slightly last year compared 2011 but a good chunk of crime is still occurring downtown, RCMP detachment commander Staff Sgt. Colin White told city council last week.

Downtown crime numbers January 2013 Total calls for service in the city: 970 Total calls for service downtown: 371 Assaults in the city: 91 Assaults downtown: 26 Liquor Act violations in the city: 36 Liquor Act violations downtown: 27 Break and enters in the city: 7 Break and enters downtown: 2 Theft under $5,000 in the city: 26 Theft under $5,000 downtown: 13 Mischief in the city: 318 Mischief downtown: 133 Source: RCMP

"The downtown core makes up a significant proportion of the overall crimes reported in Yellowknife - anywhere from one-third to three-quarters, depending on what the issue is," said White on Feb. 18.

"We have to consider the fact that many, many citizens in Yellowknife either work in the downtown core or commute through the downtown core or they do activities downtown or go to different downtown businesses to do things or buy things.

"So I would suggest that those statistics and the amount of things happening in the downtown area are probably similar to most cities in Canada. It makes a significant proportion."

City councillors told White they frequently hear about ongoing safety concerns in the downtown core, and knowing why crimes take place can help them better frame policy decisions for that area.

The RCMP began consulting interest groups, including council, for its annual community policing plan last month. During that time, Mayor Mark Heyck received significant Facebook feedback from the public, largely dealing with crime incidents in the downtown core.

Despite the concern, calls to police actually dropped in 2012 to 13,773 from 13,975 in 2011.

White said sometimes cities have bad years, pointing to Halifax which had a 14 per cent drop in violent crime over 2012 or Edmonton, which had 28 homicides last year, but 47 the year before.

Drawing from two academic sources - one of them the 2010 GNWT Communities and Diamonds study, the other an article from the Journal of Public Policy Administration and Law called "Cost of Getting Tough on Crime" - White said there is no one identifiable reason why crime rates trend the way they do.

"So as I've tried to explain a few times, I don't have an answer why the crime rate is going downhill, but it seems like I am in good company based on some of the research I have read," said White, adding that many complicated human factors could be at play.

"There are a lot of people who are academics and experts in these matters who haven't been able to come up with a 100 per cent solvable answer on why crime rates go up or down."

"Some councillors said it is important to get a good understanding of the crime rates. City councillor Adrian Bell, who is the council representative on the police advisory subcommittee, pointed out the need to get continued, detailed statistics so that council can get as clear a picture as possible as to what is happening with city crime.

"For me the importance isn't really determining what percentage happens downtown versus the rest of town and figuring out if it is normal or not, but rather it is tracking (crime rates) over time," he said.

"We definitely have been told by residents, and we ourselves believe, that downtown is the focus."

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