The northern Manitoba city of Thompson may have previously been known as the crime capital of Canada, but most categories of crimes were the lowest they’ve been in years in 2014.
That was the message RCMP Insp. Will Tewnion brought to Thompson city council last month.
“Just to go over quickly, what I’ve done is broken it down to a five-year document because, quite frankly, the detachment has done really well with established priorities before I came here five months ago, and continues to do well now,” Tewnion said.
Out of 22 different categories of crime, only three saw an increase last year.
Assault with a weapon saw an increase of 22 incidents from 2013 to 2014.
IPDA arrests saw a jump from 2013 to 2014. An IPDA is the Intoxicated Persons Detention Act, which is a Manitoba statute that allows police to arrest someone who is overly intoxicated to the point of possible harm.
In 2013 there were 2,201 IPDA cases, but in 2014 there were 2,447. Missing persons and requests to locate saw the biggest increase between 2013 and 2014. In 2014 there were 598 requests, whereas in 2013 there was 358.
Tewnion said the good numbers speak for themselves, though.
“For example we started with sexual assaults. In 2014 there were 39, but in 2013 there were 53,” he said. “2014 has been the lowest we’ve had in the past five years. Total assaults were 742, that was 104 less than last year [2013]. But again, that’s the lowest assaults the detachment has had in the last five years. Same with break and enters into a business. 2014 had 12, in 2013 there were 16.”
Traffic violations have even seen a decrease in the past five years. “If we go down to collisions it’s 292 for 2014, 26 lower than last year, and significantly lower than, say, 2010, which was 469.”
The Thompson RCMP comes up with annual priorities, which Tewnion says is the reason why crime is lower in Thompson.
“For example, our downtown strategy is an extreme example of how well this has worked,” he said. “2014, disturbing the peace we had 1,852, once again disturbing the peace is the lowest number in the last five years. For example in 2011, we had 3,723. Significant strides in those areas.”
Tewnion continued by saying without the help of community members and other groups, the downtown strategy wouldn’t have been such a triumph.
“The social issues we have downtown are not going to be resolved by police enforcement,” he said. “It’s a team approach. We can’t arrest our way out of this problem, and it wouldn’t be as successful if the community and the groups involved were not a part.”
Another priority is traffic enforcement. In 2014 the Thompson detachment has laid 78 charges for impaired driving versus 67 in 2013.
“That just shows our proactive efforts,” Tewnion said.
Coun. Kathy Valentino said it was great to see work being done to solve the crimes.
“I just want to say that I think too often we live in the negative world, and we complain about everything we see around town,” she said. “I see your detachment doing really well, have a five-year plan, and great work by folks with significant strides in our downtown strategy. I think that all of us need to work on looking at the good things that are happening.”
In 2014, RCMP officers also started an initiative involving opened and closed files for offender management. Tewnion says this has been a huge success.
