It remains clear that Estevan drivers are not getting the message about the dangers of drinking and driving.
That fact was highlighted by the recent release of the Estevan Police Service crime statistics for 2012. The report noted the number of DUI arrests in the city took an alarming jump in 2012, rising to 194 from 154 in 2011.
Although there were a handful of increases in various categories, Chief Del Block said the spike in drunk driving arrests has him particularly concerned.
"It continues to be a thought process in this city and I don't know what drives that," Block said in an interview with The Mercury on Friday. "It's a small city and in most cases you can walk anywhere you want or a short taxi ride will get you there. But people take that chance and I don't know why they are doing it."
Block said groups such as SGI and Mothers Against Drunk Driving have gone to great pains to get the message about driving while impaired to the public, but it remains obvious that a large segment of residents are not getting the point.
"You try and (get the message out) through education and we have increased our enforcement component. We get funding from SGI through the Overdrive project to target impaired driving and that is what has driven some of our stats up as well, but clearly the offences are there or we wouldn't be picking them up."
Block added that Estevan is well ahead of other Saskatchewan communities of a similar size as well as larger centres. Estevan had well over double the number of DUI arrests as Weyburn and more than Moose Jaw which almost triples the Energy City in population.
Overall, the EPS had a marked increase in activity in 2012. Their total number of calls rose from 7,406 in 2011 to 8,248.
"Part of the increase in stats will directly correlate to the resources we have because we are staffed now and we can be out there doing our job more. Criminal offences - those things are happening and we are getting called to them. There is a significant increase in those, that isn't just because of more police presence."
Among the areas seeing large increases was traffic offences which rose to 2,326 from 1,753. Block attributed the increase to the addition of a traffic unit for just over two months in 2012.
"The goal is to have full-time traffic again in 2013 with as many as three officers in there part of the time," he said. "I am probably not going to be able to keep them in there for the whole year, but when I can have them there, they are going to be there.
"There is no doubt that it helped."
Also increasing were provincial statutes - which are non-traffic offences such as liquor tickets - rose to 1,164 from 913. Other criminal code offences climbed to 437 from 238. Sexual offences rose to 21 from nine.
Another sharp rise came in the number of prisoners the EPS housed overnight. In 2012 the EPS had 892 prisoners which was up from 693. To put it in further context, in 2005 the EPS had just 370 prisoners. Block said the increase comes at a significant cost for the department, estimating that it costs almost $100,000 to house that volume of prisoners in a given year.
On a positive note, drug offences began levelling off or decreasing. The number of trafficking arrests dropped to 50 from 95 while possession charges decreased by six.
"Hopefully that is because of our continual focus on drugs. It's way too early to say that it's a result of the increased enforcement over the last four years, but it is starting to go down and hopefully that is going to become a trend rather than a slight fluctuation."
Block was also happy to see a decline in the number of mischief cases, which include incidents of vandalism. Other decreases were noticed in areas such as crimes against the person, fraud and break and enter.
Despite the decrease, Block said drug enforcement will remain a focus for his department in 2013 along with traffic and drinking and driving.
"We are probably going to be doing some laser radar in the city, which will be new to the public," he said. "The RCMP are bringing a traffic section into the southeast area so we have talked about the possibility of teaming together at times. The RCMP would assist us and we would assist them. There will probably be more mini blitzes if we can get that off the ground."
