SUNDRE – Following a previous uptick in property crimes responded to by local Mounties last year, the trend reversed in a downward direction during the department’s third quarter in 2022.
“Because of so many arrests that were made on offenders and the people that we know were involved in all these thefts, we predicted that the third quarter was going to see a significant reduction,” Sgt. Trent Sperlie, commander of the Sundre RCMP detachment, told council during the regular Feb. 21 meeting.
“And we did see that. We’ve seen probably a better than 50 per cent reduction between second quarter and third quarter property crime stats,” said Sperlie, who was recapping highlights from a report he’d written and submitted to council.
“I’m confident that’s directly related to the arrests of those known offenders,” he said.
But he did not anticipate the downward trend to continue.
“I’m going to predict the opposite this time, because some of those offenders are back out now,” he said, adding time would tell whether the fourth quarter stats indicate a reverse in the decline.
And overall, statistics dating back five years indicate a slow but steady increase of property crimes, he said.
“We did have a significant anomaly in Quarter 2 when we had a really huge spike, but we’ve now brought that back down,” he said.
Following the presentation, Coun. Owen Petersen asked about a note in the sergeant’s report referring to a community consultation regarding a meeting about restorative and/or alternative justice that involved a discussion about rekindling the program in the Sundre area.
“Can you tell me what that is?” the councillor asked.
The sergeant said one of the detachment’s members – Const. Haley Andrew, who he described as “very self motivated” – started looking into some of those programs in other detachments areas in an effort that involved reaching out to coordinators in Red Deer.
“So, she’s been spearheading that,” said Sperlie, adding the constable is endeavouring to bring the program back into the community.
“We haven’t seen a lot of it in the last few years, so we’re hoping that she can take that on and rekindle it,” he said, expressing full confidence in her abilities based on her performance since being posted in Sundre.
Following the presentation, council accepted the report for information.
Responding the next day to follow-up questions, Sperlie told the Albertan the program is essentially an initiative intended to remove some burden off the court process for offences in which an alternative form of justice such as community service can be considered instead of immediately resorting to simply throwing them behind bars in cases involving for example a first-time offender whose actions were out of character.
“That helps to alleviate some of the burden that’s on the court system right now,” he said, adding when asked that the program hasn’t been used in Sundre since his time with the detachment.
“It’s not something that’s been at the forefront of our priorities here at the detachment,” he said, adding Andrew made note of that and of her own motivation proceeded to open the lines of communication with the program’s coordinators to see about reintroducing here.
