By Katie Ryan
Among the many things that 2009 will be remembered for in Lloydminster is a spike in crime.
The RCMP have released the year end statistical numbers for the city, revealing a nine per cent jump in criminal code offences. Broken down, the numbers show incidents shot up from 5,692 in 2008 to 6,234 to 2009.
It’s not a statistic the detachment is happy to report, but one officers are working hard to curb said Sgt. Ken Marchand.
“I’ve been here 4.5 years and every year it’s a little bit higher and a little bit higher,” he said.
The 2009 municipal census indicates the community’s population has grown by almost four per cent in two years. And with more people calling Lloydminster home, the city’s growing pains include an upswing in crime.
“The growth here always funnels everything upwards and that’s where the police resource methodology comes in. It’s driving the numbers up, crime is driving the numbers up,” said Marchand.
“We are saying it’s also driving the police numbers up because we need more police to deal with it. Growth has a cost.”
Marchand pinpoints three underlying causes responsible for fueling the escalating criminal activity in the Border City: growth, a struggling economy and demographics.
“That’s the big three,” he said. “Again, we don’t like to point fingers but a young population, that seems to be where the accidents occur, the fights, the drinking and driving, and whatnot. We are a youthful city, we are a growing city and we are also a city in a downturn.”
The role “the big three” are playing does not come as a shock to the detachment.
“If you have a habit with drugs and you can’t pay the bills, the money comes from somewhere and that’s break-ins, theft, shoplifting and fraud. We are not surprised,” said Marchand.
Drug offence totals were consistent year to year, 134 for 2009 and 130 for 2008.
While the nine per cent hike in crime is not a statistic the city is boasting about, it’s a figure Mayor Jeff Mulligan expects will rise with a full force and good police work.
“Those are only the ones that got caught,” said Mulligan referring to 2009’s spike in crime.
“They give you some trends but it doesn’t tell us where our strengths and weaknesses are. Our RCMP are really taxed to the max right now and when we get the right number of guys, get everybody in here complete with the new RCMP dog, I think the numbers will actually go up because we are apprehending more of the activity that is going on.”
Mischief
Incidents of mischief also increased, from just over 1,100 for the previous year to date, to more than 1,400. As to why there is a rising trend in general mischief and willful destruction has officers scratching their heads.
“The mischiefs, I can’t put a handle on that. It’s mindless damage, really that’s what it is. It’s hard to figure,” said Marchand, adding that vehicular vandalism increased. “Sometimes if it’s damage to a vehicle, but it’s not a stolen vehicle, then it’s quoted as mischief, but to put a handle on why the mischief, I can’t.”
Traffic Collisions
The detachment is pleased to report the city had no fatal collisions in 2009, however, non fatal/ injury collisions jumped by over 300, from roughly 1,200 in 2008 to over 1,500 in 2009.
The rise in traffic collisions rose in 2009 despite a dedicated traffic unit and photo enforcement’s first full year on the streets.
“Traffic has been the Achilles heel as far as I’ve been here. The city has outgrown its infrastructure,” said Marchand.
“There’s is a lot of impatience out there, there is a lot of erratic driving. There are a lot of intersections backed up. If you see a stop sign and all of a sudden three people go at once, the third person is probably cutting it a little short and all of sudden there is an accident. I think that’s part of it.”
Not only is Lloydminster’s growing population a factor, with a strong local businesses community and more box stores setting up shop, Marchand said there are more out-of-town visitors on the roads.
“We’ve got big boxes and big boxes bring in people from far and wide. Saskatoon and Edmonton aren’t the only draw anymore, we are,” he said.
“We get people from the outlying areas coming and shopping and when they are in our city they are driving and they are in unfamiliar territory. There are a lot of rural people in the city, they are not used to the traffic and fender benders occur.”
Despite the hike in traffic collisions, Marchand said photo enforcement is effective and is hitting drivers where it hurts – their pocketbook.
“Take them away (cameras) and take the traffic unit away, and what would they be. I think they’ve had an effect but I can’t quantify it,” he continued, adding photo enforcement wrote over 6,000 tickets last year.
“There have been some people who have had four tickets a month, that’s not sustainable. If they are getting tickets ... eventually you would think that the pocketbook’s going to tell them a story that maybe they should slow down.”
Fraud
The Border City’s location, growing population and the recession are all factors in the climbing cases of fraud in the community. RCMP reported approximately two per cent more incidents in crime in 2009, from about 180 cases to 235.
“Unfortunately counterfeiting is becoming more frequent because of the technology out there, a laptop computer or a photocopier,” said Marchand.
“Being on Highway 16 as well, a regional centre for shopping and whatnot, we are seeing more and more counterfeiting.”
More often than not though, the culprits of fraud tend not to be local. Marchand points to travelling criminals as being responsible for the jump in fraud.
“We’ve had some success between Saskatchewan and Alberta identifying some of these people but when they do catch them they are all the way from Regina to Moose Jaw, to Prince Albert, Lloydminster and Grand Prairie. They are just running community to community dumping their bills,” he said.
In a police report, Marchand said the main theme for 2009 was change.
“2009 was a year where our work loads continued to increase, we faced the challenges of moving to another division (K Division),” he stated in the report.
“We met all of this with dedicated employees and many hours of donated voluntary overtime.”