Residential break and enter rate rises after dipping below 5-year average

Calgary police say despite some earlier success tackling residential break and enters, the numbers are starting to creep up again.

The forcecentralized its break and enter unit last year to deal with a growing problem, and it gave an update on the unit'sprogress at a police commission meeting on Tuesday night.

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Police Chief Roger Chaffin said the number of home break and enters dropped below the five-year average for the first time since 2014, staying below that levelfor sevenstraight months until last month.

"So we've seen some good work," he said.

"Our concern is, can we sustain that work?It's very labour intensive, the volume of work is incredibly high, we're having short-term successes, but obviously for the community and for the service, our goal is, can we sustain this over a longer period of time?"

From January to May this year, the break and enterunit charged 61 alleged offenders with 205 Criminal Code offences.

Police recovered $629,000 worth of stolen property, and seized more than $6,000 worth of drugs and $10,000 in cash in various currencies.

Question of resources

Chaffin said he and the force are constrained by a lack of resources.

"If I had 100 more people couldI do it differently?Well, of course, but we don't," he said.

"We've always committed to the city that we'll find innovative ways to utilize the resources we have and show we can be effective with fewer resources. This is one of those ways."

Police say unlike residential break and enters, commercial break and enters and "others" such as detached garages have remained above the five-year average.

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