Property Crime in Lacombe County has nearly tripled over the past 4 years.

Theft, mishief, and break and enters are all up substantially from previous years, and Blackfalds RCMP says it's a sign of the times.

Staff Seargent Ken Morrison says County residents have lived in relative innocence over the years, and have grown accustomed to leaving doors unlocked, and keys in ignitions "criminals overall are lazy and they go after the most easy target possible.  Also the rural areas are much more spread out, we need to be more in tune with ensuring that some of our areas are well lit, it's also good to be able to have your property visible from the road".

Between January and October in 2013, Blackfalds RCMP dealt with 130 property crimes, followed by 230 in 2014, 299 in 2015, and a whopping 386 so far this year.

Morrison says they've also been working diligently with the Lacombe and Red Deer rural crime watches in an effort to help curb these numbers "trying to engage the community to get to know their neighbours, to be more aware of what is occuring, to actually call it in.  If you see something suspicious report it at the time, don't wait until the next day and then we find out there were 3 or 4 break ins".

Morrison does say however that numbers this past month have gone down, in large part to a chop shop bust in the County at the end of September, where $400,000 worth of stolen property was recovered.