The five officers working out of the Coronation RCMP detachment have been having a busy, yet productive 2022.
Statistics released in November for the second quarter of the RCMP fiscal year, which began July 1, show that on the roads an increased RCMP presence has led to 446 traffic related offences, compared to 214 the year prior.
Of the offences, 176 were related to speeding most of which led to tickets or warnings being issued. During the same time period in 2021, 131 of the offences were related to speeding.
So far, since April 1, 2022, RCMP officers have dealt with 728 traffic related offences, 315 of which were speed related.
The increased presence is part of the Coronation RCMP’s safe road initiative which has officers conducting increased patrols of areas know to be affected by property crimes.
However, the Coronation detachment has been having success in criminal code matters as well.
In the second quarter of 2022, officers responded to 81 property related offences. While three files still remain active, the remaining 78 files were closed with 43 of them resulting in charges being laid. This resulted in a 45 per cent clearance rate for the detachment.
Comparatively, in 2021 the detachment responded to 77 property related offences and had a clearance rate of 28.5 per cent.
So far in both quarters of 2022, officers have responded to 148 property related offences, five of which are still under investigation. Of the remaining, 67 were were cleared with charges being laid resulting with an an overall clearance rate of 47 per cent for the year.
In the two first quarters of 2021, officers responded to 184 criminal-code complaints, clearing 62 with charges for a clearance rate of 34 per cent.
According to Sgt. John Pike, “year to date our property related offences have decreased by 36 and clearance rate has increased by 13.14 per cent.”
Another area of criminal code tracked is persons crime, which is where assaults and other inter-personal offences are tracked. In persons crime, Coronation witnessed a 23 per cent decrease in complaints with 136 in quarter two 2022 compared to 176 in 2021.
Other criminal code statistics track offences such as people carrying weapons, disturbing the peace, or failure to comply with court orders. This area also saw a 53 per cent drop in reported offences in 2022 vs 2021.
Overall, criminal code offences were down 23 per cent year over year and traffic related offences were up 112 per cent.