By Spencer Sterritt

P.A. Police chief explains 11.2% crime increase

Mar 16, 2016 | 5:14 PM

Prince Albert saw an 11.2 per cent crime increase in 2015, but Prince Albert Police Service (PAPS) chief Troy Cooper said statistics don’t tell the whole story, and he was proud of police performance in 2015, in particular the by-law response.

“One of the things I’m most proud of is our bylaw response. It’s morphing into a community response program that has an expanded utility…of making the community safer, making the neighbourhoods better.”

PAPS dealt with 4.3 per cent more calls in 2015. April saw an increase of 20 per cent. Cooper said this was due to the significantly hotter weather. In 2011, which also saw an abnormally hot April, calls for service also rose dramatically.

In July calls for service increased by 17 per cent. This was due to the influx of evacuees from La Ronge and other northern Saskatchewan communities, according to Cooper.

Robbery (34.2 per cent) and fraud (30.4 per cent) saw the highest increase.

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In 2015 there were 106 reported robberies, up from 79 in 2014. Robbery includes everything from petty shoplifting to armed robbery of a convenience store. Chief Cooper said an increase in addictions and youth were tied to the higher robbery statistic.

According to a map provided by PAPS, robbery hotspots in Prince Albert were at the 2^nd Ave. and 15^th St. W. area, including Gateway Mall, 7/11, and the Coop Gas Bar, and just north of 6^th Ave. and 28^th St. E.

Related to robberies, motor vehicle theft rose 14.3 per cent. “Motor vehicles are generally engineered so they can’t be stolen. It’s very difficult to steal a car,” Cooper said. 

Most of the offenses PAPS responded to was cases where family members had taken a vehicle, or keys had been left inside a car. A media campaign about the hazards of leaving keys inside a car is expected to roll out in 2016. 

Cooper said Prince Albert’s downtown was not the site of major robberies. “There’s only a handful of robberies that actually occurred. I’m not trying to downplay the increase of robberies, but when you look at the data you see that the downtown was not the priority for that type of crime.”

The 30.4 per cent increase in fraud brought the number of cases up to 150, up 35 from 115 in 2014. A broad category, Cooper explained the biggest aspects of fraud were addictions based fraud and cybercrime.

He said addictions based fraud was when a suspect deposited an empty envelope into an ATM, saying there was $20 inside when there wasn’t, and other similar crimes. The other half of the fraud numbers is cybercrime, including email and telephone scams, which has been on the rise recently. 

“There really is no appropriate response at this time, other than what we do locally,” Cooper said of the rising cybercrime stat. However, he, and other police chiefs, are working on a national strategy. 

Break-and-enter stats, as well as prostitution stats, were down in 2015. 

ssterritt@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @spencer_sterrit