REGINA — It turns out Regina is seeing a lot of similar crime issues to what other communities in Saskatchewan are experiencing at the moment.
Regina Police Service reported monthly crime statistics for July at the Board of Police Commissioners meeting on Tuesday. Those showed a few trends, including an increase in one area where other communities are also reporting spikes: property crime.
It was reported crimes against property were up 550 reported incidents over 2021 in Regina, for an overall year-to-date increase of 9.4 per cent.
The majority of that, said Chief of Police Evan Bray, is thefts under $5,000. Regina reported an increase of 455 reported incidents of theft under $5,000, for an 18.5 per cent rise.
Those include such things as break and enters to vehicles, break and enters to houses and garages and thefts of catalytic converters, which is a problem seen elsewhere as well.
“Property crime for sure is an issue seen across the province. We’re seeing it in the city,” said Bray. He said the change in behaviour coming out of COVID-19 has been part of that.
“Break and enters to homes in 2020 were down because everyone was working from home. Now, a lot of people are finding themselves back to the office, and we’re seeing some increases in break and enters happening in residential areas.”
Bray said just the day before there had been an incident in a Regina parkade where 10 vehicles were gone through, and all of the people who were parked in the parkade were at work.
“The fact that they’re back at work, they’re in there, really comes down to trying to equip residents of Regina with information and knowledge of what they can do to keep themselves safe — not having things visible in their cars, doing things in their homes to protect themselves from being a target.”
Interestingly, there was good news when it came to thefts of auto vehicles. Rates have decreased by 70 incidents for an overall decline of 13.6 per cent year to date.
Police Chief Bray was happy to see that trend of fewer thefts of autos, but noted that thefts from autos and stealing items from cars is “something we are still seeing as a significant issue.”
He said this is happening at all times of the day, but a lot of times at night as people leave vehicles unlocked, or locked with valuables visible inside.
In other categories of note, Regina Police reported crimes against the person are also down, with a year-to-date decrease of 128 incidents over July 2021 for a 7.5 per cent drop.
Putting the two major crime classes together, Regina Police Service received 422 more reported incidents of crimes against the person and crimes against property combined in 2022 over 2021, for a 5.6 per cent increase.
A category that drew considerable attention at the meeting were robberies. There were also 26 reported robberies in July for a year-to-date increase of nine incidents or seven per cent.
Nine might seem like a small number, but Police Chief Bray told the board “let’s not forget, nine is nine people that have been robbed. That’s a pretty serious event to happen in the city.”
When it comes to robbery, Bray said people often think of the masked bandit who goes into a bank. But he said most of the robberies in Regina are street robberies, where an individual is walking down the street and someone comes up and with threats or violence takes an item from them.
Overall, there were 7,318 dispatched calls for service in July for a year-to-date decrease of 8.4 per cent. Alarm Calls for Service report a year-to-date increase of 16.7 per cent.
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