Bike theft at UBC has significantly decreased over 2016, according to statistics provided by Campus Security and the RCMP.
While Campus Security and the RCMP both agree that bike theft has gone down, they have both reported different numbers. Campus Security stated that bike theft is down about 20 per cent this year compared to what it was around this time last year, whereas the RCMP stated that it has decreased by 32 per cent.
In assessing why this number has gone down, Parking and Services Director Brian Jones — to whom Campus Security is temporarily reporting — claimed that students and faculty are getting better at locking up their bikes.
“People are getting more savvy and listening to the warnings,” he said.
In contrast, UBC RCMP operations manager Sgt. Drew Grainger points to better patrolling on campus as a catalyst for the drop in bike theft.
“We have a crime analyst on our detachment that will identify [bike theft] hotspots for us,” he said, “where we can strategically place police officers and work with Campus Security to have more of a visible presence, and an ability to identify and react to thefts that might be in progress.”
However, both men recognize that not all bike theft on campus is reported to either service. According to Grainger, the amount of unreported theft that goes on is hard to calculate.
“There obviously is unreported theft or just unreported crimes in general out there, but to give you a number or an idea, I just couldn’t tell you.”
Likewise, Jones noted that predicting levels of unreported theft is a very speculative thing to do.
“Ask a hundred people — you’ll get a hundred different answers in terms of what that under-reporting looks like, but I’m sure it’s under-reported.”
At first glance, Campus Security’s bike theft stats are pretty uneven — they noted 61 reported thefts in 2014, 135 reported thefts in 2015 and 73 reported thefts in the first 10 months of 2016. In all three years, more bikes were stolen from Totem Park Residence than anywhere else, while Vanier, Acadia and Fairview also reported high theft numbers.
Jones claimed that the people in Campus Security believe the jump in reported thefts in 2015 was a result of improved reporting that followed education campaigns such as Crime Prevention Week.
“We’re just actually hearing about it in a much more concise and accurate way than we have been in the past,” said Jones.
Jones added that those in Campus Security don’t think that the recent drop in bike thefts is due to a possible decrease in reporting.
“Speaking to the folks in the security department, that’s not the sense that they’re getting,” said Jones. “These folks are looking at bikes all the time, so I would suspect that if you spoke to some of those folks, they would say that what they see now is more people are locking their bikes with the right locks.”
Jones also said that a lot of people on campus are still not taking the proper security measures to protect their bike from theft. He advised cyclists to lock their bikes’ frame and rear wheel to a bike rack in a well-lit area, or to secure their bikes in a campus storage case.
He also encouraged them to register their bikes with Project 529 — a digital bike registration service that helps return recovered stolen bikes to their owners. The service is offered to students for free during events such as Crime Prevention Week.
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