Prince Albert Police. (Image Credit: file photo/paNOW Staff)

By Susan McNeil

Crime stats

Assaults, robberies push PA violent crime uptick  

Feb 18, 2026 | 2:06 PM

While the overall increase in crime in the City of Prince Albert sits at less than five per cent between January 2025 and January 2026, two areas have seen bigger increases: assaults and robberies.  

January crime statistics released by the Prince Albert Police Service show assaults increased by 23 per cent, rising from 96 last year to 118 this past month.  

Robberies went up from six to nine in the same time frame.  

“There are always things that we’re keeping our eyes on, and unfortunately, what we’ve experienced when it comes to violent crime, we’re still seeing an uptick in two areas, assaults and robberies,” said Chief Patrick Nogier recently. 

In the last few years, PA Police has added crime analysts to their payroll and Nogier said their job is to dig into the data to see if any patterns emerge. If they do, then it makes for easier investigations. 

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“I’d like to get community to understand that we’re doing a deeper dive into where these robberies are occurring, how they’re occurring, and who’s involved to ensure that if there is any public awareness component that we have to inform the public of.”  

Another concerning increase happened with arsons, which numbered two in January 2025 but seven a year later.  

That number comes on the heels of an arson that destroyed the city’s Salvation Army building the month before and has the police also looking a little deeper into how to approach the problem.  

“So what do we do as an organization? And we know then that just responding to and investigating when we can hasn’t been sufficient. We know that we’ve got to be engaged,” Nogier said.  

Police met with Prince Albert Fire Department Chief Kris Olson and deputy chief Alex Paul to talk about the trend and learned that there are lot more fires than police knew about.

“One thing that we learned there is that the number of arsons that we are reporting is only a fraction of the number of fires that the fire department are going to on a regular basis, which is problematic. So we need to make sure that through that consultation between the two organizations that we’re coming up with potential alternatives,” Nogier said.

In addition to that, gun crimes have gone up as was previously reported.  

While the police remain aware of the increases, some crimes have trended downwards at the same time.  

Break and enters reduced as did reported thefts of items valued less than $5,000.  

Overall weapons charges reduced and there were no charges of trafficking drugs in January compared to three charges the previous year.  

Possession charges remained the same at four. Traffic tickets dropped from 322 to 220, a 30 per cent reduction.  

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susan.mcneil@pattisonmedia.com