Overall crime in Regina has seen a significant increase in 2018, compared to years past.
Crime rates were up 8.9 per cent from 2017 and up 12.3 per cent from 10 years ago.
Those numbers reflect all three of their major crime categories: crimes against the person, crimes against property and other criminal code offences.
Regina police say thefts made the biggest jump in 2018 at 11.4 per cent and made up about 30 per cent of the city’s criminal activity.
Of those thefts, vehicles continue to be highly targeted.
“We’ve got a strategy in place to deal with stolen autos, we’ve got heightened awareness and changes to our front line officers and how we deal with it,” said Evan Bray, Regina Police Service chief.
“We have a lot success in holding offenders accountable when it comes to stolen autos, but it still continues to be a problem.”
Crimes against the person, which include assaults, battery and domestic violence, increased by 8 per cent when compared to 2017.
An increase in sexual assault, meanwhile, has prompted police to make operational changes.
“The big change we made recently is how we train officers to investigate those files and we expect that too can cause an increase in the number of reports,” Bray said.
“It’s because people have an increase in trust or feeling their file will be investigated.”
Bray said movements like #MeToo could have an impact on decreasing the number of sexual assaults.
“They’ve really made it culturally and socially unacceptable for these sorts of things to happen,” Bray said.
“People feel more comfortable are motivated to come in and report them.”
Bray also referenced Statistics Canada in how stats are collected and how things are classified, which he says will increase the number of cases being reported.
There were six homicides and 17 attempted murders in 2018, compared to eight homicide and 22 attempted murders in 2017.
Other criminal code offences including, breach of probation and bail violations increased by 2.9 per cent in 2018 when compared to 2017.
To find more crime stats visit the RPS website.
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