(Prince Albert Police Service/Facebook)

By Jaryn Vecchio

Yearly Crime Stats

Violent crimes in P.A. see sizable increase in 2023

Jan 16, 2024 | 11:59 AM

2023 was a busy year for the Prince Albert Police Service (PAPS).

According to the organization’s yearly crime statistics, there were over 41,000 calls for service. This is down from the roughly 44,000 they had in 2022, however, the number of violent crimes has skyrocketed.

In 2023, there were 2,051 victims of violent crime which is up from 1,832 in 2022 and 1,165 in 2021.

Police Chief Patrick Nogier told paNOW it’s hard to say what exactly is causing the steep rise.

“We’re trying to identify what those trends are in the community so we can have more of a profound impact on the front end versus always responding,” he said.

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He did explain they continue to see crimes driven by retribution and criminals who choose violence first, such as gang members.

The crime that saw the biggest yearly increase was assault. There were nearly 1,500 last year, up from the 1,332 in 2022. Nogier explained there were almost the same number of male victims as there were female victims.

Robberies have doubled in the last two years increasing from 91 in 2021 to 180 in 2023. The majority of the incidents happened to people out in the open.

Arsons are also looking at an upward trend. Last year, there were 63 which is slightly higher than 2022’s total of 57. The number of incidents has increased each of the last five years; there were 28 arsons in 2019.

Nogier explained this is an area of concern because they don’t have the funds to have an officer dedicated to these specific cases.

“Our front-line personnel are being required to go to high-priority calls,” he said.

Some investigations go smoothly because the responding officer has experience in arson cases, however, it gets more difficult when it’s a front-line officer who’s just starting out.

Not all violent crimes saw numbers increase in 2023.

There were five homicides, the lowest yearly number the city has seen since 2018. Nogier believes this will help P.A. on the annual crime severity index.

“We’re doing everything we can to address what those numbers are, and we know that homicides play a big impact on increasing the crime severity substantially,” he added.

Again, Nogier said it’s tough to pinpoint why there were fewer murders last year. He does believe the crime reduction team did a great job removing people with weapons off the street.

Another crime that saw a decrease was sexual violations as the city went from 142 in 2022 to 129 in 2023.

Despite overall violent crime numbers increasing, police made fewer arrests. There were just under 4,400 arrests in 2023 which is down from the roughly 5,000 the year prior and the nearly 5,500 in the year before that.

Nogier said a big reason this is happening is because officers are trying to arrest fewer intoxicated people. Instead of bringing them to jail, they’re looking at other avenues that would better support them. The number of times people were arrested in 2023 for being intoxicated was just under 500 times fewer than in 2022.

“When it comes to those prioritized calls, the ones that demand police interaction and intervention, we’re making arrests when need be,” added Nogier.

The number of arrests for non-intoxicated matters, such as violent crimes, was slightly down but relatively close to 2022’s total.

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Jaryn.Vecchio@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @princealbertnow