The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Overall crime in the Creighton region essentially held steady last year, but it wasn't all good news. Recently released figures from the Canadian Centre Justice Statistics show that in 2012, per-capita crime in the Creighton RCMP's jurisdiction rose three per cent. That is not considered statistically significant given the relatively small number of reported violations (613 incidents in 2012 versus 582 in 2011). Violent crime dropped 15 per cent (107 versus 123), including a 29 per cent decline in level one assaults, the least serious form of assault (58 versus 80). Drug violations were down by more than half (12 versus 26), with non-vehicular theft under $5,000 also dropping significantly (25 versus 37). At the same time, however, property crime rose 26 per cent (272 versus 212). As part of that trend, break-and-enters were up 45 per cent (46 versus 31). Motor vehicle thefts nearly tripled (17 versus 6). Applications of the Youth Criminal Justice Act essentially steady (6 versus 7). It is important to note that the Creighton RCMP statistics include not only Creighton, but also Denare Beach, Sturgeon Landing and some of Highway 106. The stats used to separate Creighton from the rest of the region, but as of 2012 the figures are no longer broken down this way. The drop in violent crime may have been the most surprising revelation in the stats considering that Flin Flon saw those types of offences rise 32 per cent in 2012. On the whole, however, the Creighton region had a crime rate that was 34 per cent higher than that of Flin Flon. That said, police caution against trying to glean too much from the raw stats, particularly given the relatively low numbers involved. Skewed Crime statistics applied to a small region like Creighton can be skewed by just a handful of incidents, sometimes occurring over a single weekend. The stats show that 179 people were charged for the Creighton region's crimes last year, representing seven per cent of the population of the region. In Flin Flon last year, 197 people were charged, representing three per cent of the area policed. (The percentage-based increases and decreases mentioned were calculated using per-capita stats, not raw stats. According to RCMP stats, there were more people in the Creighton jurisdiction in 2012 than there were in 2011).
