Most crime is down, but a short-staffed force is still scrambling to fill the need.

The annual report presented by RCMP in Fort St. John about crime in 2011 shows that the priorities that have been identified are being addressed.

With 34 regular members, 14 provincial members, two First Nations police, two reserve constables and four auxiliary constables, the detachment currently has a full roster. However, many of the statistics presented by Egan suggest that the community still needs more.

When compared against communities such as Prince Rupert and Courtenay, it was shown that the Fort St. John detachment had a higher than average call volume, few members and more files per member than most other detachments.

This is attributed to a number of factors, including the fact that it is simply a busy community.

“Because we have such a strong economy, we have a lot of people that are making a good income and a lot of young people, so they often want to let loose and party a bit,” said Sgt. Steve Perret.

“And with that come alcohol and drug related problems, and those often spur things like assaults and drinking and driving and domestic violence.”

The nature of much of the employment in the natural resource industry also presents another challenge for the detachment.

“The formula that decides how many police officers we have in a community is based on the population of a community, and one of the issues we face here is that there is a large part of the population that is transient,” said Perret. “With that, we actually police more people than the population of Fort St. John shows.”

One new member is expected to join the detachment later in February, and the personnel resources will continue to be reviewed throughout the year to provide an accurate forecast of what’s needed to address the workload in the community.

Egan also said that they have brought back auxiliary constables in recent years, which has been of assistance to the regular members.

“Auxilary constables are people who live and work in Fort St John and they volunteer their free time to come out and assist the police in various activities,” said Perret.

“When they’re on duty, are peace officers. They have some of the authorities that police do, like the power to arrest people, but they’re not armed.”

The calls for service remained fairly static from 2010-2011 with approximately 13,000 being placed in 2010 and just under 14,000 being placed in 2011.

While criminal code offenses against persons (violent crime) and criminal code offenses in the ‘other’ category such as vehicle thefts and mischief remained the same, property offenses were reduced by nearly 2,000 instances.

The drug unit ended 2011 with two significant cocaine seizures, and the statistics for the year show that cocaine trafficking in the community was reduced by over half in that year.

However, charges for cannabis possession increased from approximately 80 to nearly 120.

Perret said that this doesn’t necessarily indicate an increase in cannabis in the community, but rather a stronger hand in enforcement.

“Drug offenses are always out there, and an increase in drug seizures can be attributed to perhaps more complaints from the public and in response we take more enforcement action,” said Perret.

“It doesn’t mean more drug offenses are happening in the community because for the most part, they’re not. Like any other crimes, it goes through peaks and valleys.”

The liquor and disturbance statistics are all significantly down as well with public intoxication incidents reduced by nearly 200 and disturbances caused reduced by nearly 300 incidents.

Egan also noted that the bike patrol program was well received by the public last year and would likely be back again this year.

The RCMP detachment is now working with the city to review the crime reports from last year and set community policing priorities for 2012.