Lies, damn lies... and statistics

Drugs... the victimless crime...

While the rate fell provincially, in Vancouver it remained much higher at 2.41 per 100,000 people, largely due due to the number of gang-related slayings. There were 55 homicides in Vancouver last year, 19 of which were gang-related. That's about one-third of the total, significantly higher than the national ratio of one in five homicides being gang related.

Corp. Dale Carr, spokesman for the Lower Mainland's Integrated Homicide Investigation Team, said gang-related homicides take more time and money to investigate, and are less likely to be solved by police.

Police solve only 40 per cent of gang-related homicide investigations, compared with 80 per cent of domestic and other homicides, Carr said.

"It is no secret that the drugs and organized crime files are a lot more complex."

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