North Battleford City Council received a report on North Battleford's crime statistics for Dec. 2012, and yearly statistics that compare 2012 to the previous two years.
Though Staff Sgt. Phil Wilson lauded the "moderate decreases" shown in December 2012 compared to December 2011, yearly comparisons were less clear-cut.
The largest changes between 2012 and 2011 were in drug offences, which increased by 37 per cent, and liquor act violations, which dropped by 31 per cent. Otherwise, most statistics were down. Business break and enters and motor vehicle collisions were each down by 15 per cent, and false alarms dropped by 10 per cent. Provincial traffic offences, however, showed the second-largest yearly increase, of 11 per cent.
Wilson emphasized that the increase in drug offences was more because of self-generated work than anything else, and that the overall picture was positive. Total calls for assistance dropped, but only very slightly, from 15,507 to 15,024.
Looking at the statistics from a three-year perspective, there are fewer trends to be found, and often the drops seen from 2011-2012 occurred after a large increase from 2010 to 2011. A few statistics have shown trends though.
Residential break and enters have shown a three-year consistent drop, from 30 to 24 to 18, and motor vehicle collisions have increased consistently, from 21 to 101 to 131. In the case of liquor act violations, the dramatic drop from 2011 to 2012 was preceded by an equally dramatic increase, from 17 to 113, from 2010 to 2011. Provincial traffic offences behaved similarly, rising dramatically from 89 in 2010 to 509 in 2011, before dropping to 422 in 2012
