BURST
Overall crime in B.C., even crimes against people, dropped during the last fiscal year but the category that showed the least decrease was crimes against property, according to the 2024-25 annual report for the B.C. Prosecution Service.
The drop in crime follows a downward trend in criminal offences that began around the time of COVID and has continued since, according to the report released Monday.
The number of reports of recommended charges prosecutors received mostly from police were down for the fifth year in a row, to 52,353 from 54,616 the previous fiscal year, a 4.1 per cent drop, it said.
The drop is more significant compared to an average of the five previous fiscal years. The 2024-25 figure is 7.2 per cent below the five-year average.
In 2020-21, the start of the pandemic, prosecutors received 61,973 recommendations for charges, it said.
“The trend of decreasing (charge recommendations) began as a result of societal changes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and has persisted through the most recent fiscal year,” it said.
In 2020-21, there were 12 charge recommendations per 1,000 population, and in 2024-25, that dropped to nine per 1,000 population, it said.
But “crimes against the person” remained stable during the five-year downward trend, it noted.
“Only now (has it) started to show a noticeable decrease in the last fiscal year,” it said.
The category of crimes that have fallen the least are crimes against property, according to the report.
The prosecution service, which in B.C. is responsible for laying criminal charges based on police recommendations, laid 53,782 charges in 2024-25, which is a drop of five per cent from the previous year, it said.
And 40,276 accused persons had charges approved, which is a 75 per cent approval rate, it said. Less than five per cent of the accused were youths between 12 and 17 years old.
The prosecutors also refused charges in 19 per cent of the police recommendations, forwarded three per cent for alternative measures and sent four per cent of the police reports back to police agencies for further work, it said.
The report also said 40,605 prosecutions were concluded in 2024-25, noting that the volume of files have dropped along with the number of recommendations with charges.
“The decline in prosecutions can be traced to the societal changes that were produced by the pandemic,” said criminologist Neil Boyd in an email.
“The numbers given here do not speak directly to the rate of crime,” said Boyd, an SFU professor emeritus. “Many crimes are not reported to police, and police practices can also impact the number of cases brought forward for charge approval.”
Despite the decrease in overall volume of cases, the prosecution service said the number of active files remains constant year to year, “suggesting that each file is more complex and requires more resources.”
Of those prosecutions concluded in 2024-25, more than half, or 56 per cent, were concluded by a guilty finding, while one per cent ended in a not guilty outcome, it said.
And in more than a third, or 35 per cent, prosecutors stayed the original charges, although those cases could involve some other consequence, including a guilty plea to another charge or issuance of a peace bond.
The average number of days prosecutors worked on files dropped slightly, to 166 in 2024-25 from 167 the previous fiscal year, but from 186 days in 2020-21, it said.
About 70 per cent of all files are concluded before they reach the courts, according to the report.
The prosecutors also said crime trends reflect only incidents that are reported to police, which can be affected by a number of factors, including population and police enforcement strategies.
In 2024, Statistics Canada reported across Canada the crime severity index dropped four per cent, and B.C. has remained for years in the middle of the range compared to other provinces.
But in 2024, B.C. had the largest hike in the crime severity index of any province.