The month of March saw a continued downward crime trend in North Battleford, though perhaps not as pronounced as the previous months.
Regardless, the statistics - which saw monthly calls for service go down to 887 compared to 1,142 in March 2013 - had North Battleford councillors buoyed about the prospect of possibly turning a corner on crime in the city.
Councillor Greg Lightfoot was particularly enthused at Monday's council meeting.
"This is the largest decrease in crime I've seen in my time on council," said Lightfoot, who encouraged Mayor Ian Hamilton and Battlefords RCMP Insp. John Sutherland (who was not in attendance Monday) to look further into what is leading to the downward trend.
"I'd sure like to know what it is because it would certainly be interesting to see," said Lightfoot, who had speculated the RCMP daily reports may be a help.
"Maybe we are making it that much more uncomfortable for criminals to be in the community."
Hamilton did admit that the severe cold weather was a factor in the recent low numbers. He adds an RCMP detachment analyst is coming in the near future to assist in dissecting the trends.
The March statistics, compiled by Sutherland, saw year-to-year declines in several areas for the month.
Those included in person offences (from 73 to 42), residential break and enters (from 13 to five), property offences (from 203 to 171), drug offences (from 29 to 14), provincial traffic offences (from 200 to 193) and in impaired operation of a motor vehicle (from 27 to 26).
However, there were increases noted in criminal code offences (from 105 to 116), in business break and enters (from two to three), in liquor act offences (from 26 to 30), and municipal bylaws (from seven to nine).
Overall, declines are noted for the first three months of 2014. Calls for service are at 2,273, compared to 3,030 for the previous year to date. Overall, person offences are down 36 per cent, business break and enters down 17 per cent, residential break and enters down 54 per cent, property offences down 17 per cent, criminal code offences down 15 per cent, drug offences down 60 per cent, and impaired operation of a motor vehicle down 14 per cent.
Liquor act offences are up for the year by 23 per cent, provincial traffic offences up 10 per cent and municipal bylaw offences up 32 per cent.
Also provided were three-year comparisons for the first quarter crime statistics, going back to 2012. Those showed that crime numbers for 2014 are down in every single crime category compared to 2012 with the lone exception being liquor act offences, which were up to 79 compared to 64 for the previous two years.
Municipal bylaw offences were also almost back to 2012 levels, with 33 reported in 2014 compared to 34 in 2012.
The other categories all saw declines compared to the previous highs. Person offences were 124 compared to 194 in 2013 and 190 in 2012. There were five business break and enters compared to 12 in 2012; 11 residential break and enters compared to 26 in 2012; 440 property offences compared to 581 in 2012; 282 criminal code offences compared to 447 in 2012; 32 drug offences compared to 131 in 2012; 401 provincial traffic offences compared to 739 in 2012; and 68 impaired operation of a motor vehicle compared to 88 in 2012.
Enthusiasm about the overall downward trend seen over the past few months, and some general discussion on efforts to get citizens more involved, dominated discussion at the Monday meeting.
Despite the overall good news, there was concern raised by Lightfoot about the noticeable weekend vandalism on 100th Street.
That spree saw several businesses and signs spray painted over, with the word "angst" showing up on more than one of the buildings there.
Hamilton assured Lightfoot there would be follow up on that issue, and urged property owners to remove the graffiti as quickly as possible.
"The greatest deterrent to graffiti is to remove it immediately," the mayor said.
