REGINA - The Regina Board of Police Commissioners have received the report on the total crime stats for 2023 at their meeting Tuesday, and the trend has been heading upwards.
According to the report presented to the board on Tuesday morning at Regina Police headquarters, Regina saw 20,581 police reported crimes in 2023. This is up eight per cent compared to 19,026 instances in 2022 and up 18 per cent over the past nine years from the 17,520 reported in 2014.
There was a significant increase in Crimes Against the Person by 19 per cent in 2023, up to 3,493 compared to 2,924 the year before.
Homicides were up: there were ten homicides (up three) and 23 attempted murders (up five). While up from last year, there have been several years over the past decade where the instances were higher.
Assaults were up 27 per cent among all levels of assault for just under 2,500.
Sexual offences were down, with a 13 per cent decline in sexual assaults to 187 and a seven per cent decrease in other sex crimes to 77. Both categories are still higher than the ten-year average for the city.
A big concern is robberies, which were way up 31 per cent to 344 compared to a year ago, and up 52 per cent compared to the 227 in 2014.
There were nine reported Kidnapping and Forcible Confinement cases in 2023, down from the ten year average of 17.
Criminal harassment is down with 19 reported cases, below the ten year average of 22.
Extortion cases have been trending up on the ten year average, due mainly to rise of online sextortion. While the 41 cases in 2023 are down 18 per cent from 2022, numbers remain elevated compared to the ten year average of 13.
Crimes against property were up three per cent compared to 2022, or 11,990 occurrences. This is a 16 per cent increase to 2014.
Thefts of motor vehicles have trended down by 21 per cent in 2023, from 841 down to 662.
Thefts were up two per cent compared to a year ago and 13 per cent compared to 2014. But break and enters are down six per cent compared to 2022 and ten per cent compared to 2014. Mischief cases were up 17 per cent from a year earlier and up seven per cent over the ten years.
Arson exceeded the average, with 433 instances compared to the ten year average of 190. Regina Police are pointing to a surge of online reporting as behind the increase, but concerns remain about vacant and abandoned buildings.
Other criminal code offences were up 12 percent, with procedural offences up 13 percent and violations of orders prohibiting weapon possession up a whopping 37 percent.
Occurrences under the Controlled Drug and Substances Act were up 31 percent, driven by fentanyl and cocaine charges. But compared to 2014 there were 71 per cent fewer occurrences.
As well, drug seizures continue to rise with some high profile drug busts by Regina police.
Traffic enforcement saw a 24 percent increase.
Overall, calls for service were up nine percent cent to 61,838, up from 56,551.
In speaking to reporters afterwards, the recently appointed Regina Chief of Police Farooq H. Sheikh noted the overall numbers were in line with a national trend seen elsewhere.
“If you look at overall trends across the country, crime is going up in most jurisdictions,” said Sheikh. “And I think again we need to understand why. Is it staying, majority, through drugs? So we need to understand why it’s going up, and have we’ve got the resources in the right places, have we got sufficient resources, and is there any crime prevention strategies that we haven’t been using that we could do.”
On that point he expressed a desire for residents of the Regina community to be “our eyes and ears,” encouraging establishing more Neighbourhood Watch in the city.
Sheikh also made it known he wanted to find out more about what was behind the upward trends seen in many areas of the Regina crime stats.
“It’s trying to understand what (are) the root causes of the crime,” said Sheikh, and “start to evaluate some of the suspects or offenders that we arrest to understand what’s the root cause. And if the root cause is predominantly drug-related, then I want to continue a very proactive style of policing to take out drug traffickers, and the people who are actively supplying the drugs to the people in our communities.”
To try and stop the flow of drugs, Sheikh has pointed to their own “proactive” efforts to take out major suppliers of drugs, including a couple of high profile drug busts by Regina Police so far this year.
“We’ve taken out some real big suppliers of drugs. So I think for us as police, you know, there’s a lot of stuff we can’t do, but what we can do is target drug traffickers.”
In speaking to reporters, he pledged police will “keep doing what we’re doing because the message will go out, if we keep taking our big players, like I mentioned the seizure we had in February — up to potentially $3 million in seizure there, the most amount of fentanyl we’ve ever recovered in Regina. So, continue to do what we’re doing over the last three months.”
Regina Police supports transparency in releasing crime stats
During his media availability Sheikh was also asked about the recent call by several smaller communities, including North Battleford and Lloydminster, to suspend the public release of the Crime Severity Index numbers by Statistics Canada out of concern about negative publicity to communities from those numbers.
From the Regina Police Service perspective, Sheikh indicated he didn’t want their own stats kept hidden — but he also didn’t want success stories of Regina Police Service to be hidden either.
“We want to be transparent. But at the same time, it’s important… it’s most important to share the good news,” said Sheikh. “So I think what I would like us to have regular community events so we can share — we can share the stats and the Index, but also share some of the stuff we’re doing and actually help in crime prevention strategies, so that the community gets to hear what happening with the stats, gets to hear the good news that we’re doing and get some crime prevention advice, and ask for their support in helping.
“So I think, you know, if it’s just the stats on its own, it can be negative, but it’s about how we can deliver that in a reassuring way to let people know the perception is crime is probably not to the levels which it needs to be.”
Sheikh also noted that in his past policing experience, part of the reason some crime stats went up was because of changes making it easier for people to report crimes, such as reporting it online.
“Back in the day we didn’t have that. So people now, it’s easier for them to report crime, they’re encouraged to report crime.”
