It appears criminals may have taken COVID quarantine guidelines to heart this spring.

High River RCMP Staff Sergeant Greg Wiebe says there was less activity for them to deal with.

"Overall through COVID we've seen a down-tick in pretty much all crime, whether it relates to property crime, violent crime, everything's kind of on a down mark right now," he says. "It has a lot to do with COVID, a lot of people staying indoors, I think we might see more of a normalization moving forward as we move out of the pandemic, so it'll be interesting to see how that plays out."

He says by and large detachments have seen a drop in most types of crimes.

Criminal Code offences were down about 12 per cent with break and enters and other property crimes also way down, by as much as 30 per cent.

"I think the detachment's been doing a very good job being out there and being visible and addressing issues as they come up in the community, so we have to keep doing that," Wiebe says.

There were 66 mental health issue calls in the second quarter.

"Mental health has, I think, throughout the province, it's a issue that's become more prevalent since I've been in policing and it's becoming something that we deal with more frequently, so that's certainly something that we want to address and we're working with our partner agencies in town to ensure that we have a multi-faceted approach to a mental health issue or a mental health crisis," he says. "We certainly don't want it to become a police action and I don't think that police are always the best resource for dealing with mental health issues."

He says when they can deploy the different agencies in the community and they can provide different approaches to people, they hope to find a more long lasting or permanent solution.

 

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