Regional police share plans to confront high crime rates

Regional police provided context and plans at Wednesday’s Waterloo Regional Police Service (WRPS) board meeting when it comes to Statistics Canada’s recent data on police-related crimes.

Waterloo Region has a higher total crime and violent crime severity index score than the national average as well as the provincial average.

Additionally, the Region has among the highest crime rates and violent crime rates across the 12 largest municipal police services in Ontario.

“One of the ways that we are addressing crime is through the crime suppression strategy which aims to reduce key violations using a variety of proactive tactics,” said WRPS Strategic Planner Erin Vandahl. “The violations the service is specifically targeting include the use of firearms, robberies and break-and-enters.”

One of the crimes that increased the most between 2021, and 2022 was robberies. In Waterloo Region, the rate of robberies per 100,000 people increased by 34 per cent.

Police Chief Mark Crowell also shared an update on a robbery that took place at Conestoga Mall in early October 2023.

“This is a level of criminal behaviour that is organized, it is certainly something of great significance, and our investigators are working to solve these as best as possible,” he said.

Police have set a goal of reducing the number of gun violence, break-and-enter, and robbery crimes by five per cent as a start.

Deputy Chief Jen Davis shared more information about WRPS’ strategy to reduce these crimes thus far.

“Action planning is created to address short and long-term crime trends,” Davis said. “Examples of this include increased visibility, increased patrols around locations that have maybe been targeted for crime, or are likely to be targeted for crime based on patterns we saw.”