While the Estevan Police Service (EPS) encountered a number of high-profile calls that grabbed the public’s attention last year, the police did experience an overall decline in the number of calls for service.
The police had 7,877 calls last year, which was down almost 10 per cent from the 8,731 they received the year before.
“I’m not surprised,” police Chief Paul Ladouceur told the Mercury. “We’ve noticed a decrease, obviously, in some of the activity in the city. When we look at the numbers, as the population decreases a little bit, and a lot of the people who were … transients have moved on … that’s going to have an impact.”
Still, there are increases in some crime categories that are a cause for concern.
Among the major categories, there were 163 crimes against a person, compared with 152 in 2014. There were 29 sexual crimes, 118 assaults, 14 assaults causing bodily harm and two robberies. Assaults saw the biggest increase, as there were 106 in 2014, which Ladouceur finds troubling.
The other categories remained the same or had little change.
Police also investigated 353 crimes against property, compared with 364 in 2014. There were 32 residential break-and-enters, 14 business break-and-enters and three other such crimes.
Police also handled 11 motor vehicle thefts, four thefts over $5,000, 154 thefts under $5,000 and 135 mischief/willful damage complaints.
The number of mischief/willful damage complaints was down from 164 the year before, and the number of thefts over $5,000 was down from the 10 in 2014. But the number of thefts under $5,000 was up from 134 in 2014.
Controlled Drug and Substances Act infractions experienced a big increase from 162 in 2014 to 205 last year. There were 124 charges for trafficking, a 118 per cent increase from the previous year’s 57, and 78 charges for possession, compared 105 the year before. Police also had three charges for production, while they had none the previous year.
“The reason we’re seeing that increase is the fact that we have a dedicated drug and intelligence position now,” said Ladouceur. “It’s not so much that the drug activity is going through the roof and has increased, we’re just investigating it thoroughly and catching them.”
In terms of Criminal Code traffic violations, there were 162 charges for impaired driving, a 28 per cent decrease from the 225 seen in 2014. Dangerous driving and other incidents dropped by 64 per cent from 11 to four.
Ladouceur believes the decrease in impaired driving charges can be connected to an ongoing crackdown by police.
“Our members at the forefront and on the street have been doing an outstanding job,” said Ladouceur. “And so has the community. Kudos to a community that picks up the phone and dials the police when they see a suspected impaired driver.”
It’s unfortunate that it took a couple of serious incidents in October that involved impaired drivers, to bring the community together and emphasize the dangers of impaired driving, but those accidents also created more awareness about the need to fight impaired drivers.
The crackdown will continue this year.
“It is something we will be continuing with long into the future,” said Ladouceur.
He hopes the check stops have deterred people from driving while impaired.
Some of the other incidents, like domestic violence, don’t have an actual category; if an assault occurs during a domestic, then it is listed as an assault. The chief noted it would be labour intensive to check if an assault or a mischief complaint involved a spouse or a partner.
“We are actually looking at a process on how we can better categorize a domestic,” said Ladouceur.
Ladouceur stated several times last year that he believed the number of domestic incidents was on the rise in Estevan, due to the stress and the tension associated with the economic slowdown.
The chief also wants to find a way to track the non-reported domestic violence.
“I would suspect those numbers are much higher than the actual reported calls,” said Ladouceur. “I want some idea of early intervention, or how big of a problem this is in the community.”
The EPS works closely with the Envision Counselling and Support Centre, and while Envision can’t divulge specific details on the cases they are handling, it gives the police an idea of the basic numbers.
Clearance rates for last year were not immediately available, and likely won’t be released until February or March, since investigations are still ongoing from many cases that happened later in the year.
The public’s initial reaction might be that since call numbers are down, the amount of criminal activity in the city is also down, and so funding for the EPS can be cut back. But the police handle a variety of calls, and the calls for service don’t include speeding tickets and many other traffic infractions.
The public can’t just look at percentages, either; the focus should be on hard numbers. And in many categories, the numbers have remained stable.
Also, some of the categories that have experienced an uptick represent their most time-consuming calls.
“We’d like to see the numbers go down in all categories,” said Ladouceur.
The EPS currently has 26 officers – a figure that includes the chief but not the police force’s special constables. Ladouceur believes they have an adequate number of members, and so he won’t be pushing for a staffing increase, but he would also be opposed to a decrease.
“Public safety is paramount,” said Ladouceur. “When we look at numbers going down, calls for service are down not just because the economy’s slower or people move on. Calls for service sometimes go down because the police are doing a good job, and not as many incidents are happening or occurring where people need to call.”
If the number of police officers is cut back, the amount of crime in communities will start to climb again, because it’s difficult for police to operate with a reduced number
of officers.
