Charges laid faster despite steep rise in muggings, Winnipeg police say

The number of muggings in Winnipeg has increased rapidly over the past five years, but police continue to lay charges in the same percentage of cases and they're doing it more quickly.

Robberies of individuals in public places increased to 1,797 in 2018from 1,081 in 2014,and police have consistently laid charges against people in about 30 per cent of those cases, according to statistics from the Winnipeg Police Service.

The average time it takes until charges are laid has dropped significantly to 17.8 days in 2018 from 31.9 days in 2014.

"I was surprised at it," Const. Rob Carver said.

"That's indicative of a lot of resources and a lot of work being put into making sure that if someone isI guess the term commonly is muggedthat we're able to solve them when we're given the information."

The number of muggings police call them strong-arm robberies has risen more than 65 per cent over five years, and Carver says while he's getting tired of saying it, the spike coincides with the rise in methamphetamineuse in the city.

"I would put the numbers somewhere in the neighbourhood of four or five, six, seven meth-related incidents every single day," Carver said.

Yet even with the increase in muggings, police lay charges in the same percentage of cases which means they're clearing approximately 65 per cent more cases when it comes to number of charges laid.

And they're doing it much faster the average time it takes to lay charges was two weeks shorter in 2018 than in 2014.

Carver cited a couple of factors he thinks might be at play.

"We've reorganized our major crimes unit, and I know that their ability to focus more resources on person crimes and violent crimes may be partly explaining that," he said.

'Cameras are everywhere'

However, abigger factor is probably the explosion in the number of cameras recording public spaces, he says.

"Cameras are everywhere. You know, we used to go to home break-ins, it would be rare to find somebody that had video of the incident. Now it's sort of 50-50, and if the individual who is the victim doesn't, sometimes their neighbours do," Carver said.

"I know that a lot of what we're able to solve now ends up getting tied to video."

Surveillance video helped the investigation into the weekend robbery of a woman, 66, in River Heights, the case that prompted the CBC's request for crime statistics.

"It's amazing to me how much private video was out there," Carver said, pointing out that River Heights is a well-to-do neighbourhood where people have enough money to invest in surveillance.

"People are more than happy to say, 'Hey I've got this on my computer and, you know, we want to give it to you.' "

Carver says a video surveillance system can help protect property, both as a deterrent to would-be thieves and to help solve crimes, although he wouldn't go as far as advising people to spend hundreds of dollars on a camera.

"We think it's a good thing, but I don't think it's our role to say to people, 'You should get a video camera.'"

One thing that does not help investigators is meth use. In fact, Carver says, meth involvement can make it harder to solve crimes.

"Typically there's no connection between the victim and the suspect," Carver said about crimes involvingmeth users.

"It's random and sometimes the suspects, certainly in terms of the meth subculture, move between neighbourhoods, so they may have nothing to do with the area that the crime has been committed in, so it actually in some ways can make it more difficult."

Meth-related crimes also tend to have a lower rate ofcharges laidbecause the people often targeted are intoxicated,which makes thempoor witnesses, Carver says, addingthe criminals are already difficult to identify because they are often masked and strike their victims at night.

Vulnerable, intoxicated people also are more likely to refuse to co-operate with police, Carver says.

"We know there was a robbery, but we don't always get tons of co-operation," he said. "They're hard to solve."