The City of Belleville’s Police Services Board received a report regarding crime statistics for the third quarter of 2022.
Reported crimes increased 40% from the same quarter in 2021 including increases in more violent crimes like assault and sex offences.
Belleville Police Chief Mike Callaghan said it was tough to comment on the spike as it could potentially be an anomaly.
“I like to look over a three year trend, because we can have ebbs and flows,” Chief Callaghan told media after the board meeting.
“We’ve seen that we’ve had in some areas, as an example, an increase nationwide of sexual assaults during COVID and some of those are just now being reported. So as a result of that we have some quote unquote historical sexual assaults to work on and I believe that COVID had a lot to do with that with people being confined and then reporting as well,” Callaghan said.
He says despite the potential anomaly, it is still something being looked at.
“I don’t want to put too much emphasis on a huge spike right now until we’ve had an opportunity to look at those stats. I can tell you, through the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police, we’re looking at this very consciously to ensure that we’re applying sufficient resources but also addressing what the overarching issue is if it is indeed an increase,” Callaghan told media.
Among the types of crime that increased in the third quarter are robberies, break and enters, motor vehicle thefts, assaults, sex offences, fraud, criminal harassment, and uttering threats.
The third quarter represents the time period of July 1 – September 30 of 2022.
