The Moose Jaw Police Service has released its statistics report for 2022.

There was one homicide last year, which was solved and charges laid. There were also three attempted murder cases that were solved. There were no homicides in 2021 and two attempted murders.

Seven aggravated assault offences occurred in 2022, an increase of two from 2021. Assault with Weapon/Cause Bodily Harm increased 10.6 per cent going from 47 to 52.

"We've talked about that over the last couple of years," said Police Chief Rick Bourassa, who went over the report at last week's Board of Police Commissioners meeting. "How we've seen an increase in the levels of violence in some cases. We continue to respond to those types of calls and we lay the charges where appropriate."

There were 55 sexual assault offences last year compared to 61 in 2021.

Another area that was highlighted at the meeting was the spike in break-and-enters at business premises, which saw an increase of 65.1 per cent. There were 71 offences in 2022, compared to 43 in 2021.

Superintendent Taylor Mickleborough notes there were a couple of factors at play.

"One, when we see people targeting storage bays in particular, we often see the same person or group targeting a number of storage bay businesses, so that can absolutely drive our numbers up if that's occurring and we did see that occur. As well, unfortunately, what we're seeing is a lot of, as with the drug trade, it's common for stolen property to become a form of currency, and you'll see people breaking into businesses for access to something that they can quickly flip to their drug dealer for some product...We have had some successes in charging, in some cases, multiple charges for the same occurrence for break-and-enters to business."

Residence break-and-enters fell 11.4 per cent with 147 reported last year, compared to 166 in 2021.

There were 68 motor vehicle thefts in 2022, with 64 reported in 2021.

Arson offences were down significantly from 2021 which had 34. There were nine in 2022. Impaired driving offences dropped 5.3 per cent from 131 to 124.

Total drug offences decreased 48.6 per cent last year. There were 37 offences reported in 2022 compared to 72 in 2021. Methamphetamine offences dropped 64.5 per cent from 31 in 2021 to 11 in 2022.

"We did a lot of project work on illicit drugs in the community in this past year and although the numbers of incidents are down, the quantities seized have been quite high," explained Bourassa. "We've seized a large number and worked on some people at the trafficking level. Some of the numbers from previous years were at the possession level and through our projects that we've talked about, our investigative capabilities and our tactical capabilities, we're able to move more into the suppliers and go at that."

Total calls for service rose 19.3 per cent in 2022, with a final total of 19,143.