Crime and violent crime in Halton both rose 30 per cent in 2022 over the previous year, Halton Regional Council heard on Wednesday (Jan. 11).
Halton Regional Police Service (HRPS) Chief Stephen Tanner presented the statistics as part of the 2023 police budget approval process.
HRPS was seeking approval of its budget of $186 million for 2023, which represents a 5.7 per cent increase over the 2022 budget. The Halton Police Board approved the amount at its meeting in December.
Almost across the board, crime was up in Halton last year, including a 150 per cent rise in homicides, with five recorded. Tanner noted two of the homicides were part of the shooting spree in September which saw five shot and three killed, including two people in Milton and a Toronto police officer, before the shooter was killed by police in Hamilton. The incident also added to Halton's attempted murder total of eight for 2022, which was up 100 per cent from four the previous year.
In addition, there were:
- 14 shootings (up 40%)
- 155 robberies (up 128%)
- 811 B & Es (up 20%)
- 1,241 car thefts (up 43%)
- 267 sexual assaults (up 25%)
- 1,413 assaults (up 21%)
- 429 impaired driving incidents (down 12%)
In total 15,109 crimes were recorded in Halton in 2022 (up 31 per cent), of which 2,714 were violent offences (up 30 per cent).
"In some crime categories, there is a little bit of a rebound post-COVID," Tanner said. "House break and enters went down a little bit during COVID because most people were at home."
Robberies were up 128 per cent to 155, and Tanner said he has heard from a number of councillors about concerns related to pharmacy robberies.
"Most of those robberies, if they are armed robberies and often they are — whether the firearm is real, whether an air soft type of pellet gun, there is no possibility for a victim or a police officer to tell the difference," he said. "But many of those robberies are being committed by criminals who are from outside of Halton, coming here and committing the robbery, often using stolen cars, and not being afraid of fleeing from police. It makes it a very difficult situation for us. And certainly, I am grateful for the number of robberies our investigators have been able to solve but it is definitely an increased trend."
Auto theft remains a big concern, Tanner added. "The majority of those are what we call a relay theft," he said. "An individual can go close to a person's home, scan for fobs which open and start vehicles, steal the signal, basically, and start the car and drive away."
He said it is nearly impossible to prevent these thefts but if people put their key fobs inside Farraday bags, park vehicles inside their garages or use physical locks on steering, it can help. But, he noted, "It's easier to steal a car than to start my laptop in the morning."
The stolen vehicles are most likely in a cargo container out of Montreal within 24 hours, headed to Europe or Africa, he added: "It's organized crime. This is not a by-chance thing. It's very organized, very professional."
Tanner noted that, while crime rose in the area, Halton continues to register far less serious crime than the other Big 12 communities in Ontario.
Tanner told the Halton Region councillors that crime rates have been falling since 1974 and continued to fall over the past decade.
Compared to the Big 12 communities in Ontario, Halton has by far the lowest severity of crime when looked at on a weighted index, scoring 24/100 in 2021 against the worst performer, Windsor's 94.9. Toronto sat at 56.7.
By comparison, Tanner showed that HRPS has the highest clearance rate on severity weighted basis of the 12 and spends less on policing.
Within its new budget, HRPS hopes to add 26 staff members to its ranks and to invest in cybersecurity measures to better protect the service.
Budget presentations to Regional Council are slated to continue on Jan. 18.
