High property crime rate likely linked to drug use and economy: prof

Drug use and economic struggles in Calgary are likelykeeping the local property crime rate high, a new public policy report has found.

University of Calgary researchers found the number of reported property crimes vehicle theft, break and enters and robberies spiked more than50 per cent sincethe start of 2015and have stayed consistently high ever since.

The connection isn't definite but economics professor Ron Kneebone suggeststhe correlation is strong between the city's crime rate and economic struggles and drug use.

"To investigate this issue, we chose to define crimes associated with criminals trying to access money and see whether the number of those crimes is correlated with the state of the economy or the prevalence of drug use," Kneebone said in a release.

The crimes spike at the same time as Calgary was hit with therecession in reaction to slumping oil prices and subsequentdownturn in Alberta's energy sector that included oilpatch layoffs, he said.

But the economy has improved andproperty crime reports haven't.

"It's stayed high so that makes me think it's not so much the recession, although I'm sure that played some sort of role, but I think it's something else," he told theCalgary Eyeopeneron Wednesday.

"My suspicion is it's drug use and the fact that people who are addicted to drugs have to resort to crime in order to pay for their habit."

Opioid crisis

The spike in property crime correlates with deaths from fentanyluse more than tripling in 2015 from 2014, according to Alberta Health Services data. The province has been dealing with an opioidcrisis in the years that followed.

The school compared six years of publicly available data on property crimes, such as break and enters and theft, released monthly by the Calgary Police Service.

In the three years before the recession and opioidcrisis, Calgary had an average of fewer than 1,500 property crimes reported each month.

After January 2015, that average jumped above 2,000 monthly property crimes. On occasion, the monthly reports spikeabove 2,500, police data shows.

Kneebonepublished the report with economist Margarita Wilkinson Wednesday morning. The team plans tocontinue its research by looking into the potential impact of drug prices on crime.

Long-term research has shown sudden economic downturns, increased drug use and high drug prices all can impact property crime rates.

However,Kneeboneclarified in a statement to media Wednesday that he has learnedfrom Calgary police since the report was released that drug prices have moderated since 2015.

He speculates that this shows it is not necessarily thehigh price of drugsbut more widespread usethat is leading to increases in crime.

Kneebone recommends people in Calgary remember to lock their doors and vehicles to reduce crimes of opportunity.

Calgary police have allocated more resources in recent years to such issues, including to car thefts specifically.

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With files from theCalgary Eyeopener.