By Alex Coop
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Despite a decrease in Estevan's overall crime severity last year, the Energy City's recently appointed police chief, Paul Ladouceur said the new numbers should be taken with a grain of salt.
"We're always happy to see reduction rather than increase without a doubt, but when we go year to year we have to be very cautious," he said. "It's not enough of a time gap in my view, to indicate a constant trend. If we look at a five or 10 year span we get to see a bigger picture."
The crime severity index (CSI) is an annual report that measures the overall volume of crime recorded by police, combined with the severity of those crimes. On July 23, Statistics Canada released the 2013 CSI figures for municipalities with a population greater than 10,000, and Estevan's was 101.75, an admirable improvement over 2012's number of 142.4. This ranks Estevan 45th overall in the country, which in the grand scheme of things, means the city is still quite high on the list despite the gradual decrease in its CSI index since 2011. Fortunately, Estevan's violent and non-violent crime index has gone down and is now sitting at 77.85 and 110.24 respectively. In 2012, the violent crime index sat at 104.68, which was a 6.7 per cent increase from 2011, while the non-violent index remained steady at 155.83.
Ladouceur said there are a number of factors that come into play when it comes to Estevan's high ranking on the CSI index, one of the more significant ones being the city's growing population. He noted the frequent influx of people coming in and out of Estevan for work, which in turn, sometimes mirrors the spikes and dips which are seen in the city's CSI index, but suggested these factors aren't reliable when looking for consistent patterns in the index.
"Say one year we find we have a lot of impaired drivers, the crime rates can go up in that case, and so is that as a result of there being more impaired drivers on the road, or is that as a result of the police officers doing great work catching more impaired drivers? Sometimes an increase is because of better police work," said Ladouceur, adding the number of calls coming in can also decrease one year, which could mean there isn't as much crime, or people are afraid to, or refuse to, report something. He used sexual assaults as an example, and the fact that victims sometimes take several weeks or months to report a case and in worst cases, don't report them at all.
Ladouceur addressed the traffic issues that many residents have voiced concern over and assures the police will continue to monitor and attempt to improve the situation on the streets, but said this isn't as serious as some of the other problems that have reared their heads.
"For most people, (traffic) is the first thing they see. When you're on your way to work and you get cut off by that motorist, well then it's 'oh my goodness it's the end of the world, traffic is out of control,'" he pointed out. "But unless you're directly affected and your house gets broken into or you become a victim of sexual assault, your biggest concerns won't be break and enters and sexual assault."
Moving forward, Ladouceur said a short-term goal for him and the rest of the police force is cracking down on drug use and drug trafficking.
"It's something that is going to be addressed by the police service, and the public will notice that," he said. Cocaine and heroin specifically, will be high priority for them.
The police chief said drug-related issues exist in communities across the country, but are potentially more prominent in areas like Estevan because of the high number of young workers with big salaries, resulting in a strong breeding ground for drug dealers.
"What we're seeing now is an increased trend in dealers and criminals from larger centres looking at this area and going 'hang on a second here, this is a bit of an untapped market, and if I can get this smaller community in the palm of my hand I can make some money here,'" explained Ladouceur.
He also said they are going to be asking for the public's help, and encourage them to come forward with any possible information they may have regarding drug-related incidents happening in the area.
Alongside the heavier emphasis on drugs in Estevan, Ladouceur acknowledged the continuous increase in cyber-assaults as another area of concern, adding there are hardly any cases now that don't have a PDF file, cell phone or computer linking to the crime. He said he will continue to do lectures on Internet safety at schools, and encourages parents to refrain from falling into what he calls "parent pressure."
"That's when you have your child come home and the first thing they say is 'mom and dad can I have a cell phone?' And the parents say no way you're only 12 years old, to which the child would point a finger at 12-year-old Suzie next door and say, 'well her parents bought her one.'
Then naturally we feel like we're not being good parents if we don't give our kid what other kids have," he said. Ladouceur highlighted the danger when parents fall into this category, and explained when they give their young child a cell phone, you're also giving them full access to the Internet, which houses a plethora of dangers.
According to Statistics Canada, the rate of luring a child via a computer rose by 30 per cent, while sexual exploitation increased by 11 per cent.
North Battleford once again obtained the highest CSI index in the country, with a figure of 323.88. On the local front, Weyburn had a CSI index of 82.6, which ranks it at 75th in the country.
