They're putting more people in cells, catching more traffic issues and dealing with a lot more stolen vehicles.
Cpl. Randy Wittig of the Humboldt RCMP sat down with the Journal before Christmas to compare some of their statistics from last year to this. What was found was surprising in some ways, and not in others.
First off, the number of prisoners kept in cells at the detachment has risen dramatically in 2010. In all of 2009, they kept 93 people in their cells, Wittig noted. In 2010, up to December 20, they had held 123.
Those held include people involved in fights or assaults, those who were disturbing the peace or who had breached probation, or who were drunk in public. Those caught for impaired driving are not kept at the detachment, Wittig explained - arrangements for transportation home are made for those individuals.
Other figures for reported offences (from December 2009 to December 2010) are also up, both in the rural areas and in the City of Humboldt.
The biggest jump was in the number of stolen vehicles.
In the City of Humboldt, vehicle thefts went from seven in 2009 to 24 in 2010, including one stolen motorcycle.
In the rural Humboldt detachment area, vehicle thefts rose from three to 15.
Between the city and rural areas, that's a rise from 10 to 39 in one year.
At the same time, thefts from motor vehicles have dropped in the city from 13 to 10.
Wittig believes this is because while going through unlocked vehicles, suspects are finding keys and decide to steal the whole vehicle instead of something from it.
City of Humboldt
Tickets for seatbelt violations within city limits rose dramatically from 118 to 207. This, Wittig believes, is due to an increased emphasis on the issue at the detachment level, and, simply by having more cops on the streets.
Overall traffic offences reported for the year rose from 363 to 453 - that's a big jump
Traffic collisions actually dropped from 95 to 74, but hit and runs - where vehicles hit other vehicles, then leave the scene -were up to 37 from 11 in 2009.
The number of impaired drivers in the city is about the same - there were 31 caught in 2010 and 32 in 2009. That number is one RCMP want to see go down as drinking and driving decreases as a practice.
"If it goes down to zero, in theory, we win," Wittig said, adding that it is a consistent problem in Humboldt.
"It's a battle we're fighting," he said.
Liquor Act charges dropped in 2010 - from 51 to 31. These charges include having open alcohol in a vehicle and minors possessing and consuming alcohol.
False calls to 9-1-1 were way up this year - that number jumped from 40 to 70 in a 12-month span.
"We get a ton of them," Wittig said. "False alarms and false 9-1-1 calls eat up a lot of our time."
A lot of the false 9-1-1s are made by children, or are mistakes in dialling, or is counted as a false call when police arrive and there is no emergency.
False alarms are up from 120 in 2009 to 163 in 2010 - an increase that prompted the RCMP and the city to implement a user-pay system. Those who repeatedly have false alarms will get fined under a new city bylaw.
Drug possession offences are up a little from eight in 2009 to 13 in 2010.
Robberies have dropped from four to three, but sexual assaults are up from three to five.
The number of assaults reported has stayed pretty much the same - there were 29 in 2009 and 26 in 2010.
Thefts were up a little from 69 to 77, as were crimes again property, which went from 73 to 86. The latter type of crime includes mischiefs - vandalism, breaking things or spray painting.
The number of reported frauds - incidents that stretch from bad cheques to phone scams - dropped from 14 in 2009 to four in 2010.
The number of break and enters didn't change much - it went from 20 to 23 - but what did change was the kind of buildings being targeted.
There was a big jump in residential break and enters - from one in 2009 to eight in 2010. The rest of the break-ins were to businesses or other buildings, like sheds.
Reported arson cases went from zero to two in 2010.
In all, total reported offences went from 2,089 up to 2,178 in 2010 - pretty consistent, Wittig said.
Rural detachment area
In the rural part of the Humboldt detachment area - everything outside of the City of Humboldt - traffic collisions dropped from 108 to 91, but the number of seatbelt violations was up significantly from 48 to 78. Other moving traffic offenses like speeding went up as well, from 448 to 519.
Hit and runs went up from two to 11 - a big jump like the one in Humboldt, while the number of fatal collisions dropped from three to two.
Impaired drivers caught by police in the rural areas went up from 17 in 2009 to 32 this year. Once again, this is due to an increased emphasis on catching these drivers, and more RCMP members out on the streets, Wittig said.
Perhaps, Wittig said, this is why the number of collisions dropped in the rural areas.
"We're catching them before they have their accidents," Wittig said.
The number of Liquor Act charges went up from 41 to 64, and the false 9-1-1 calls also went up. However an interesting thing Wittig noted was that in the past year, some payphones in rural areas have been dialling the 9-1-1 emergency number automatically in bad weather, especially rain storms.
"We are having that problem in rural locations," Wittig said. "We keep reporting it. We'll see next summer if it improves."
This is not just a local problem, he added - it's happened in other rural locations around the province as well, and not just with pay phones. Some dial-up Internet and fax lines have also been known to call 9-1-1 in adverse weather conditions.
Meanwhile, false alarms in the rural area went down from 45 to 39.
Reports of offences with weapons, including careless use of a firearm, unsafe storage of a firearm and possession of a firearm for a dangerous purpose, went up from three to seven.
Drug offences also went up - possession of a controlled substance for the purposes of trafficking went up from zero to one, as did production of a controlled substance offences.
Possession of a controlled substance went up from 10 to 12.
Sexual assaults dropped from five reported in 2009 to two reported in 2010. Crimes against persons went from five to 13 - this includes robbery, uttering threats and harassment.
Arson incidents jumped from zero to one, but assaults dropped from 12 to 21.
Thefts of items worth under $5,000 dropped significantly in the rural area - from 36 in 2009 to four in 2010.
Mischief reports went from 41 to 59, but charges on those offences went from one to 10 - an increase of 900 per cent, Wittig pointed out.
Fraud offences went from four to three, and break and enters were way down from 31 to 19.
Total reported offences in the rural area went up from 1,176 to 1,368.
In general, the RCMP are keeping youth crime, traffic offences, impaired driving and crime prevention as their top priorities at the moment, Wittig noted.
At the end of their fiscal year, March 31, they will be looking at the numbers and coming up with a new plan locally for the new year, he said, but in general each detachment focuses on those four areas as part of their police work.
