The last quarter of 2021 was a busy one for Belleville police officers.
The Belleville Police Service presented the fourth quarter crime statistics on Thursday morning in council chambers to the Belleville Police Services Board.
Board member Murray Angus wanted to know why the overall clearance rate dropped to 63%, down from 71% during the same time last year.
Deputy Chief Chris Barry said the statistics don’t differentiate between a homicide and a catalytic converter theft.
“You can get a large number of very minor criminal acts that are very difficult to identify the person responsible for. Thefts from driveways, thefts from vehicles that have been left open, catalytic converters, like I said are a big problem for police agencies right now, but those skew the statistics.”
The total number of crimes reported in the fourth quarter was 997, up from 880 during the fourth quarter of 2020, an increase of 24% over last year.
Deputy Chief Barry said in order to have a true comparison, they need to look at the numbers year over year.
“I don’t think it’s helpful to just look at small sample sizes of statistics, you need to look at year over year comparisons to see where we should be, if we’re not, are we getting our numbers skewed by those minor kinds of things, what can we do to address it. But we really have to look at the big picture and take into account our statistics over a number of years, not just fourth quarter of this year compared to the fourth quarter of last year comparison.”
There was an increase in the number of robberies, break and enters, theft of motor vehicles, assaults, sex offences, frauds, utter threats and ViCLAS (Violent Crime Linkage Analysis System) submissions.
There was a decrease in the number of arsons, criminal harassments and drug offences reported.
Heather Smith wanted to congratulate the Belleville Police Service for hosting their first ever “Women in Policing” event last November. She said she hopes the BPS can find the resources to continue to hold this event.
Deputy Chief Chris Barry said Chief Mike Callaghan has a goal of 30 in 30 for the service; which is 30% of the BPS force being female members by 2030 so they will continue to try and make the Women in Policing an annual event.
