P.A. police stats similar to last year, with one happy decrease

This past year followed the same path as 2014 in terms of crime statistics, but Police Chief Troy Cooper is pleased to see one stat buck the trend.

There were 15 per cent less people held in the Prince Albert Police Services’ (PAPS) cells for public intoxication in 2015. “We’ve got some programs in the community that have found our more chronic offenders places to live,” Cooper said. “We’ve been able to take them home instead of taking them to our cells.”

Cooper was excited for 2016. “It’s gonna be a great year for us. There’s a lot of new things happening…some new technology…we’re hoping to focus more on traffic enforcement, visibility in the neighbourhoods and that sort of thing.”

It will be a few weeks until all of 2015’s statistics have been analyzed, but Prince Albert police have already noticed several trends.

 “We’ve been challenged by drugs in the community, particularly crystal meth,” Cooper said “When we saw crystal meth in the community the first time it was in a different user group. People who didn’t traditionally use that type of drug were using it, and [we] saw the impact in the upper middle class sort of group.”

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Now, Cooper says crystal meth use has penetrated every social class. “It’s a street drug now. It’s easy to get and it’s very damaging.”

There was a five per cent increase in calls to the police in 2015, boosted by a busy April and the population increase due to wildfire evacuees. Police call volume swung up 13 per cent when evacuees were situated in Prince Albert.

Unconventional robberies, based around intimidation or bullying, were reported more in 2015, as well as crimes of opportunity.

There was a 20 per cent increase in frauds. Cybercrime frauds are the biggest challenge for PAPS. “We try to use our partners in the media to educate the public, and the next day people find some new scam on the internet,” Cooper said. “That’s been a real challenge for us to keep up with.”

He said Prince Albert youth are the least likely to be affected by cybercrime, since they are the most educated about the internet and are rarely fooled.

“Seniors are often targeted because they aren’t as experienced in the internet or email,” Cooper said. “Education is really critical for us.”

Cooper hopes to see some additional strength on the PAPS force, but said it would all depend on the budget and other factors. However, he said his officers were able to do more with less, especially his by-law officers.

After taking specific training, by-law officers become community safety officers, which allows them to do traffic enforcement as well. “We have the same amount of staff but they have a broader authority and they can do more for us.”

With files from Tomorrow During Region at Noon with Don Mitchell

news@panow.com

On Twitter: @princealbertnow