Saskatchewan is seeing its highest homicide rate in 39 years.
“To see a spike up is really disconcerting,” Justice Minister Don Morgan said.
“We’ve had good partnerships with the police and the RCMP, and we’ve seen crime and crime severity drop over the last number of years,” he said. “A lot of resources were committed to our urban areas, and I think we now have to start looking at what we’re doing in rural areas.”
Saskatchewan saw 54 homicides last year, up from 44 in 2015.
RCMP investigated 35 of those cases.
“We want to get to the root cause, so we’re going to work with other agencies to determine if this is a mental health issue, is it gang-related, is it domestic violence, anything along that line,” RCMP Staff Sgt. Rob Embree said.
A quarter of Saskatchewan’s homicides last year were gang-related, which is more than double 2015’s numbers, according to Statistics Canada.
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Of those gang related killings, more than half happened outside of Regina’s and Saskatoon’s municipal areas.
RCMP said they’re aware of the problem.
“You’re going to see a higher presence of police officers. You may see more street checks where we’re actually stopping people and checking for warrant status and things along that line,” Embree said.
Regina has the third highest homicide rate in the country. Saskatoon is ranked sixth.
“When you’re talking about gangs, you’re generally talking about very fierce loyalty, almost a code of silence, even among the victims, and often weapons and drugs and a willingness to commit crime for the benefit of the group,” Popowich said. “So those things make these crimes very concerning. It also makes some of the investigations really difficult.”
To help stop gang activity, police are looking at how to design an exit strategy for those who no longer want to participate. They’re also working with schools to prevent kids from joining gangs, Popowich said.
Embree said the perpetrator and victim are often known to each other, and the general public is usually safe.
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