The Estevan Police Service (EPS) saw a moderate decline in the amount of calls it received in 2018.
According to numbers supplied to the Mercury last week, the EPS had 8,140 calls for service and occurrences last year, which was a four per cent drop from the 8,498 they received in 2017.
Those numbers cover all calls and infractions, including Criminal Code violations, speeding tickets, scam calls and more. It also includes the EPS’s contribution to the Combined Traffic Services of Saskatchewan’s southeast unit.
Police Chief Paul Ladouceur pointed out that the EPS has made changes in how they track calls for service.
“It used to be that every time we conducted curfew checks or condition checks on people who were out on bail, we created a new occurrence each time we did that,” said Ladouceur. “What we do now is we create a master occurrence, so we put that person’s name on the occurrence, and every time that person is checked on, it would go under that same occurrence.”
If the EPS carries out 40 curfew checks on one individual, then it counts as one occurrence instead of 40.
“It makes more sense to have one master occurrence, so that when we query that individual’s name, then it will show every time they’ve been check on,” said Ladouceur.
Another example is with alarm calls. If the EPS is called to a business several times in a year, it will only show up as one occurrence now.
“When you take into account with the way we’re tracking occurrences, I would suspect there’s very little difference from 2017 to 2018 overall,” said Ladouceur.
The number of Criminal Code violations for the EPS was 694 in 2018, one more than they had the previous year. Crimes against the person were at 128, up one from 2017.
The number of crimes against property increased by 14 per cent from 306 to 349. There were 180 thefts under $5,000 and 109 mischief/wilful damage complaints. The figure also includes 25 motor vehicle thefts and 12 thefts over $5,000.
Seventy-two charges were issued under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, a 25 per cent drop from the 96 the previous year. Sixty-one charges were for possession and 11 were for trafficking.
The EPS issued 147 Criminal Code traffic charges last year, down from 166 the previous year. There were 143 charges for impaired driving and other offences for exceeding the legal limit, and four for dangerous driving. The police chief is proud to see the number of impaired driving charges on the decline from 161 in 2017.
“As I always said, as we focused on impaired driving, we’d see a spike before we’d see a downward curve, and my hope is that we’re now going to continue to see that downward curve,” said Ladouceur.
This week's edition of the Mercury will have more on this story.
