Saskatchewan RCMP and the Saskatchewan Marshals Service say they’ve been trying proactive approaches to get a handle on rural crime in the Prince Albert area and are now releasing the results. “We’re hearing from residents about their concerns with rural crime,” said Minister of Community Safety Michael Weger. “Whether it’s theft or break and enters. And the reality is we have seen an increase, year-over-year from the month of September to October in some of these rural crimes. And so, we need to respond.” The new proactive policing initiatives come more than one month after an open letter sent Sept. 21 from the Reeve of Garden River Ryan Scragg to the Ministry of Community Safety. Scragg wrote that the RM of Garden River had an urgent need for increased safety measures. The letter came after the rural community of 150 homes saw at least eight instances of property crime in just one week, including an overnight home invasion. In late September, Saskatchewan RCMP says it conducted a multi-unit operation resulting in the execution of 14 arrest warrants and 30 criminal charges. The RCMP Warrant Enforcement and Suppression Team made 17 arrests related to property crime and weapons offences, executed 47 warrants and laid 19 new charges since mid-September in the Prince Albert and Ahtahkakoop jurisdictions. The Prince Albert RCMP detachment has also been busy responding to crimes in progress and saw almost 90 calls for service over this past weekend, starting Friday evening. District Operations Officer Insp. Robert Lake said the number of calls for service has left little room to get ahead of the curve. “It’s a busy detachment… It gives us a lack of ability to be proactive and more reactive, and that’s why we lean on these support services, these crime reduction strategies.” The province is trying to get more boots on the ground and Lake said that overall interest from candidates isn’t the problem so much as intake processing. “We have several recruits that are sitting in the hopper that are waiting, ready to go through the process,” he said. “There are some changes that are taking place with our recruitment strategies across the country to start centralizing those services so that we can manage that fast tracking… We don’t have a lack of recruits right now. We have a lack of ability to process our recruits.” This past weekend, the Saskatchewan Marshals Service was at work conducting proactive patrols around the Prince Albert area. The service says it conducted patrols in more than 10 surrounding rural communities, including the RM of Buckland and the RM of Garden River. Marshals Service Superintendent Jesse Barlow says it will continue to do so as requested by RCMP. “I’ve lived here my whole life,” said Barlow. “My family lives in the rural municipalities surrounding Prince Albert. So, this isn’t just a police response, it’s a community response.” The Marshals Service has been sending Marshals to assist RCMP with rural patrols. Saskatchewan RCMP says it won’t be publicizing all crime suppression projects at the risk of impacting their effectiveness but will report on results when possible. RCMP is asking the public to report crime with as much detail as possible, saying deployments and suppression efforts rely heavily on the information provided by citizens.
