Here's what advocates say is missing from the conversation about crime and public safety in B.C.

Police and politicians in B.C. have been sounding the alarm about a decline in public safety, pledging swift action so people feel safe in their communities. But advocates say the conversation has erased one of the most devastating – and deadly – types of violent crime.

Police and politicians in B.C. have been sounding the alarm about a decline in public safety, pledging swift action so people feel safe in their communities. But advocates say the conversation has erased one of the most devastating – and deadly – types of violent crime.

On Oct. 13, a woman was killed in a home in Metro Vancouver in what police described as "an isolated incident between family members." The media release from homicide investigators identified the victim as well as the suspect, who was arrested and charged with second-degree murder.

It did not say the suspect was the victim's husband. It did not say he was facing other intimate-partner-violence-related charges at the time of the alleged murder. 

When officials talk about declining public safety, they talk about an increase in street disorder, random assaults, and often petty crimes perpetrated by so-called "repeat offenders" who are out on bail.

They don’t talk about the British Columbians who are victimized in their homes, about the violent crimes that primarily take place behind closed doors and are primarily perpetrated by men against women.

"We do have a certain kind of crime that is surging and we're not talking about it," says Angela Marie MacDougall, executive director of Battered Women's Support Services.

"It is really rendered invisible from the notion of public safety. It feels as if – and it is experienced as if – it is being suppressed in the conversations about public safety," she adds. "It's not isolated. And that is a failing of the notion of public safety, to treat this violence as individual experiences. Efforts to address it in a systemic way are actively undermined while it's being suppressed and treated as these one-offs."