Several police members on scene when arresting a suspect for an armed carjacking earlier this month

By Tommy Osborne

Crime

Lower mainland gangs causing increased crime in Prince George

Mar 26, 2024 | 5:14 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – Since the New Year began Prince George has seen no shortage of crime, as in that time span there has been four homicides, an armed carjacking, an armed robbery, and more. Well known criminologist Robert Gordon, a Professor Emeritus at Simon Fraser University, says lower mainland gangs are playing a big role in this increase. He explains this is due to lower mainland gangs moving north to take advantage of an active drug market.

“It’s a very young population, very wealthy, making a lot of money, and a transient population. They don’t worry too much about about what’s happening around them, so they will spend their surplus incomes on entertainment. It truly is market driven and it truly is a case of there being a lot of money floating around and a lot of people wanting to spend it on something,” Gordon said.

What is it about Prince George specifically that causes it to be a large drug market? Gordon explained there are several factors, with a key one being the transient population he mentioned. Because we have many workers here who traveled just for temporary work, it means they have money to spend and aren’t staying for long in our community. Gordon added Prince George may not have as much to spend on as a larger market as well, so that money could be going toward drugs.

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Both the Prince George RCMP and Gordon pointed out geography also plays a big role too.

“We’re a hub, so it brings in a lot of issues from across the region that you just don’t see in these other communities. In the Okanagan you have several larger communities, you have Kamloops, you have Kelowna, even a little smaller, Vernon, Penticton, but they’re all within an hour of each other. So they somewhat share the burden as opposed to us being up here in the north where we’re six hours from the nearest similar sized center,” said Prince George RCMP Superintendent Shaun Wright.

Gordon also noted that the illegal drug trade has seen an increase in chemicals, like fentanyl. Prior to the federal government legalizing marijuana that was one of the key products, and while marijuana is now far safer to access, a consequence of this is the illegal drug trade moving into harder and more dangerous drugs.

“It’s shifted from being a marijuana trade to one that’s more concerned with chemicals, and those things are much easier to move around. So fentanyl, for example, can be shipped much more easily than was the case with marijuana, which is bulky.”

The RCMP know drug activity is increasing in our community, but they have seen some success recently, including a drug bust earlier this month that seized more than two kilograms of cocaine and meth, and a separate bust which seized more than 10 thousand pills, alongside fentanyl, cocaine, and meth.

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