October 29, 2001 For Immediate Release

A survey conducted by the City of Prince George, the RCMP, and the UNBC Institute for Social Research and Evaluation illustrates that public perceptions about the crime rate and personal safety in Prince George have gradually been improving. The survey is believed to be one of the first of its kind in British Columbia. Some highlights:

· In 2001, 26% of people thought that crime had increased in their neighbourhood in the past five years, compared to 41% in 1997 who thought crime in their neighbourhood had increased in the previous two years.
· The proportion of people who thought crime had increased in the city dropped from 78% in 1997 to 57% in 2001.
· When asked to rate their satisfaction with personal safety in their own neighbourhood on a scale from 1 (very dissatisfied) to 7 (very satisfied), scores increased from a mean of 5.0 in 1997 to 5.6 in 2001.

The survey was conducted in May, 2001 and nearly 700 households responded to the survey. The survey is accurate to plus or minus four percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Of the 444 survey respondents who had some contact with the RCMP in the past three years, 62% were satisfied or very satisfied with the time it took an officer to respond to their call. The most common suggestions for improvements in police service were to keep people better informed (50% of respondents) and to respond faster to a call (40.2%). In general, 22% of respondents who had RCMP contact felt that the RCMP were doing an average job, 38% thought they were doing a fairly good job, and another 30% thought they were doing a very good job.

Among all survey respondents, 67% felt they could rely on the RCMP to keep the peace in their community, while 71% felt they could always reach the RCMP when they need to.

The RCMP provides a wide range of services to the community; when survey recipients were asked if they were aware of each listed service, many appeared to be relatively unknown. Services of which the public may not be aware include a downtown core bar watch and business patrol, free home security assessments by trained volunteers, a Bully Resistance And Violence Education (BRAVE) program in schools, and business loss prevention workshops.