Moose Jaw Police Service provided October’s statistical extract during Thursday afternoon’s Moose Jaw Board of Police Commissioners meeting. 

Total crimes against the person have increased 19.4 per cent. Assault with a weapon causing bodily harm is up 40 per cent year-to-date over 2022, and a 110 per cent increase on assaults of police officers. Police Chief Rick Bourassa noted that there were no serious officer injuries resulting from these assaults. 

“There is less civility, and physical violence is now being used more than it used to be, and it continues to rise,” said Bourassa. “We continue to work on getting at that and dealing with it; however, [it’s] very difficult to prevent many of these things – they happen within social networks.” 

Drugs offences overall are up 40.7 per cent. Offences in the category ‘Other CDSA Drugs’ are up 266.7 per cent over this time last year, with 22 instances so far.  

“[Drug charges are] very much project-based, so they take a long time to gather intelligence, do surveillance, do all of those sorts of things, then get the warrants and do the work,” said Bourassa.  

“We see these things come in clusters, so sometimes if you see that we didn’t lay any significant drug charges for a few months, that doesn’t mean we haven’t been working – it just means we haven’t had the culmination yet.” 

Total crimes against property have increased 2 per cent compared to this time in 2022. Included in this, thefts over $5000 have increased 82.4 per cent over the year-to-date thefts in 2022, with 31 so far this year. These thefts typically include vehicles or thefts from construction sites. Thefts under $5000 have also increased 19.8 per cent, or 915 instances to date.  

There have been year-to-date decreases in 2023 compared to 2022 for break and enters at business premises (down 28.4 per cent) and residences (down 31.5 per cent), but an increase of 20.6 per cent in ‘other break and enters’, which includes thefts from storage facilities and sheds.  

There was a 4.1 per cent increase in year-to-date calls for service, with a total of 16760 calls having been received so far this year versus 16100 calls by this time last year. October of this year saw 1880 calls, compared to 1741 in October 2022. Bourassa said they anticipate receiving over 20,000 calls this year. 

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