Crime charges in Waterloo Area proceed to be among the many highest in Ontario, whereas the clearing of felony circumstances is among the many lowest.
At Wednesday’s assembly of the Waterloo Regional Police Board they mentioned the 2023 reported crime information from Statistics Canada.
In keeping with the report, the Crime Severity Index in Waterloo Area decreased by 4 per cent from 2022 to 2023, going from 79 to 75.5, however continues to be the third highest among the many 12 largest police providers within the province. These embody locations like Toronto, Windsor, London and Niagara.
The Crime Severity Index measures the quantity and severity of police-reported crime in Canada, and has a base index worth of 100 for 2006. It consists of violent offences, crimes towards individuals or property, and different Felony Code violations.
The Stats Canada report additionally famous an 11 per cent drop in robberies and a 33 per cent improve in the usage of firearms to commit an offence.
Clearance charges
Weighted clearance charges symbolize the variety of felony incidents solved by police. Out of the 12 different massive police providers, Waterloo Area ranked second final when it got here to clearance charges in 2023 and final in violent crime clearance charges.
“But I can say we’re dedicated to taking every investigative avenue possible to not only meet the clearance rate to capacities, but also helping victims of crime in anyway possible,” WRPS Chief Mark Crowell stated on the board assembly.
One issue, he defined, is the variety of officers in a group as huge as Waterloo Area.
There are fewer than 800 officers to serve greater than 600,000 individuals. Statistics Canada ranked the area second final in comparison with different policing providers.
Crowell stated they’re devoted to fixing extra crimes however are doing the perfect with what they’ve.
“There’s no acceptable level of non-cleared crime. There’s also major complexities in terms of our investigators capacity,” he stated. “Within the comparative landscape, Waterloo Regional Police has the second lowest officer to population ratio amongst those featured and but we also had the highest number of violations per officer and the second highest clearance rate per officer.”
The report concluded that crime displays many components that “extend beyond the rise in criminal activity”.
“Such as the community’s trust in reporting to police, the ease and services available when reporting, available police resources, police service priorities, crime prevention measures, targeted enforcement practices, and other avenues of reporting crime that do not get relayed to the police,” the report learn.
Crowell added strategic enforcement, encouraging citizen reporting and public schooling will proceed shifting ahead.
