Proud Flin Flonners point out that our community offers many advantages to current and prospective residents, from high-wage jobs to quality schools and services.
But behind the scenes, some worry that one benefit – our status as a safe community – has eroded to the point that it is no longer a selling feature. This is an unfortunate sentiment, one disputed by many residents, including some within the Flin Flon RCMP who deal with crime on a daily basis.
The latest community-by-community crime figures from Statistics Canada shed light on the situation.
When it comes to community safety, a primary concern is incidence of violent crime – the most alarming category of crime, to be sure.The stats show Flin Flon reported fewer violent crimes in 2016 than in every year between 1998 and 2002. The crime was spread out over more residents back then, however, so the per-capita rate was lower. Flin Flon reported an astonishing 227 violent crimes in 2000 – 28 per cent more than in 2016. Yet how many people were suggesting Flin Flon was an unsafe community in 2000?
So much of today’s public perception of safety relates to just that – perception. Even Mayor Cal Huntley acknowledged this in offering justification for Flin Flon’s new youth curfew.
Huntley referred to “a perception out there that there’s some hazard in walking around Flin Flon at certain periods in the evening” while conceding this is “not necessarily the way that it is.”
Such perceptions solidify when residents take to Facebook to share their experiences with crime and would-be crime, often in (understandably) frustrated terms.
Twenty years ago, crime happened largely without fanfare. Once in a while there would be a high-profile offence, such as a burglary, and maybe we would hear about it if it involved a friend or was mentioned in the newspaper. Today, as long as someone writes about it on social media, fanfare can surround the most mundane of crimes – and even non-crimes such as groups of teenagers walking down the street and inadvertently drawing suspicion. Our day-to-day experience is the product of what we focus on. And now more than ever, residents are focused on crime because so many crimes are discussed online.
But it’s not all perception. There’s simply no sugarcoating Flin Flon’s high break-and-enter rate, involving mostly outbuildings such as sheds and garages, as a disturbing reality.
Public drunkenness is unacceptably common as well. While this is largely an annoying offence, it interferes with a community’s sense of safety given the unpredictability of people who are heavily intoxicated.
If there’s a silver lining to such problems, it’s that Flin Flon is not complacent about crime.
More residents have taken proactive steps such as installing motion-sensor lights and home security systems.
More residents are engaged with police, as Flin Flon RCMP Sgt. Mark Svaren believes people are reporting more crime today than they were years ago.
And more residents are taking ownership of their community’s wellbeing, as evidenced by the formation of the Citizens on Patrol Program (COPP) and the valuable work this volunteer organization does. These steps did not have the desired result in 2016, since reported crime in Flin Flon remained elevated compared to a number of other similar-size communities across Canada.
No community is perfect. In Flin Flon, there is still work to do on the crime front.
But on the whole, the notion that Flin Flon is somehow a dangerous place to live goes against the grain of most residents’ experience of this community.
