UNBC professor releases book examining Prince George’s criminal history
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PRINCE GEORGE—History professor Dr. Johnathan Swainger has released his new book, the Notorious Georges— Crime and Community in British Columbia’s Northern Interior, 1909-25. The book examines the history of crime in Prince George and its predecessor communities.
In the book Dr. Swainger discusses how the community now known as Prince George developed it’s reputation as the crime capital. However, is the city’s infamy deserved?
By examining the crime history of Fort George and South Fort George beginning in 1905 through the founding of Prince George in 1915 and continuing until 1925, Dr. Swainger finds the dreams of the “so-called” community leaders were at odds with reality in the townsite.
“Based on newspaper evidence, city hall council minutes, and the archival record — including daily police patrol reports from 1913 to 1921 — I identified a tension between the Georges’ white and self-appointed ‘respectable’ ‘citizenry and how they wanted to be seen and how, from the Georges’ origins, the community was seen as a collection of drunken resource workers, prostitutes, transients associated with the railway project and the settlement frontier,” Dr. Swainger says.
