RCMP Insp. Jesse Gilbert presents the latest crime report for North Battleford. (File photo/battlefordsNOW staff)

By Angela Brown

CSI Conference planned

City crime report shows vehicle thefts down, impaired driving up

Feb 13, 2024 | 6:00 AM

Battlefords RCMP presented its latest report to city council for the Oct. to Dec. 2023 period at Monday’s meeting.

The total overall reports for the period in 2023 amounted to 4,049, a slight increase from 3,929 for the same time in 2022.

“Overall, I’m pretty pleased with 2023,” Inspector Jesse Gilbert said. “We’ve had some areas that have dropped quite a bit and some areas that are up a little bit. We haven’t really hit many of our five-year highs. 2019 seems to be kind of the busiest year they’ve had.”

He noted he would like to see the numbers go down for reports of discharge or pointing a firearm. While the number dropped to three from 21 for the Oct. to Dec. 2023 period, the year-to-date for 2023 increased, with 40 reports, compared to 34 in 2022.

Break and enters went up, at 142 reports for Oct. to Dec. 2023, compared to 74 for the same period in 2022, a 92 per cent jump.

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Impaired driving offences increased, to 53 for the period in 2023, compared to 38 for the same time in 2022, a 39 per cent increase.

“Impaired driving is one of those things you have to be out looking to catch,” Gilbert said. “If the members are out pulling more vehicles over, they are going to catch more impaired. Those numbers don’t really concern me.“

On a positive note, vehicle theft dropped to 30 reports for the period in 2023, a 38 per cent decline compared to 48 for the same time the prior year.

“Theft of a motor vehicle is actually down to the lowest point it’s ever been,” Gilbert said. “We have seen some really positive movement on some numbers, where we’ve done some proactive work.”

CSI Conference

The City of North Battleford is leading a Crime Severity Index (CSI) conference of about 10 municipal mayors of generally similar-sized communities across four Western provinces on Feb. 28 and 29 in Saskatoon. Statistics Canada will also participate in the event as well as some academics.

“They [the communities attending] are all high on that CSI index, just like us,” Mayor David Gillan said. “We’re all coming together to see if we can collectively find a better way to do this.”

City Manager Randy Patrick noted if there was no threshold of 10,000 and greater population for the CSI rankings, North Battleford would not be number one on the list. Instead, it would rank 16th in Saskatchewan.

The city believes with North Battleford’s population of just over 14,000, its numbers are skewed unfavourably in the CSI rankings when it’s compared to much bigger cities.

“We don’t want to live with this crime-town moniker anymore, because it hurts everything in our community – recruitment of professionals, families, and the attraction of business,” Gillan said. “It’s having a very detrimental effect in our community, so we have to push back.”

He hopes the conference shows people that statistics can be misleading.

“In this conference, we are just going to be digging into all this. We’re really doing our best to try to find solutions,” Gillan said.

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angela.brown@pattisonmedia.com

On X: @battlefordsNOW