Whitehorse break-ins triple, RCMP say

Break-ins in Whitehorse have tripled over last year, according to RCMP figures.

"As of last week we had 59 reported break-and-enters to businesses in Whitehorse, which was up from 17 that were reported last year," said Const. Julia Fox, adding police have laid charges in eight of the 59 incidents.

There has been a string of break-ins at businesses and non-profits this summer. Fox says police aren't sure what is causing the spike. 

"Sometimes we've found it could be transient people who come into town, commit a bunch of crimes and then leave," Fox said. "It could also be a new group of people that have decided to started doing break-and-enters."

'It's cyclical'

Meanwhile, the Whitehorse Chamber of Commerce blames rising unemployment numbers.

"It's cyclical," said chamber president Rick Karp, adding he's seen the pattern before. "It's regrettable that this is happening. We really, really need our economy to pick up."

The RCMP encourage business owners to report break-ins to help them track patterns in the crimes. Fox says, sometimes, business owners will see signs of an attempted break-in and not bother to report it because the would-be thieves were unsuccessful. 

"The reason why those things are important to report is so we can track them, so we can actually start mapping them and get time of day or roughly time of night that these things are happening," she said. "It could be also that the neighbouring business might have a security camera." 

Both Fox and Karp say businesses should install surveillance systems if they don't already have them.