The Board of Police Commissioners looked at some of Estevan's latest statistics at last night's meeting. They compared some of the figures for June and July with their 2024 counterparts, the five-year average, and more, with Police Chief Jamie Blunden giving context for the figures.
Blunden gave a general overview of the summer's activities to start the meeting off, taking a look at one area that did see an increase.
"For June and July, it's actually been a good couple of months. When we look at June, when we look at the month compared to June of 2024, the only significant increase in any area would have been for theft under $5,000. In June of 2024, we had 16. In June of 2025, we went up to 22. Overall, though, when we look at it for the year to date, 2024 versus 2025, we were down 10 per cent. So we went from 120 year to date in 2024 for the end of June to 108."
Several other categories were down, with Blunden talking about some of their successes.
"Overall, all categories, crimes against persons, and crimes against property, both down 10 per cent overall. Then, when we look at both drugs and substance theft, we were down 50%."
Blunden does put the caveat that drug and substance theft is partially down due to a member of their Drug Section and Criminal Investigative Section being moved to fill in a spot on patrol.
After the month-to-month comparisons, the city looks at their year-to-date numbers and the five-year averages. Blunden says they did see some areas rise in 2025.
"If you look at the five-year average for June of 2025, the only area in which we see a bit of an increase is the crimes against property. Again, the five-year average was about 173.6. We're at 202 year-to-date at the end of June. Then, when we look at crimes against persons, 5.2 was the five-year average. We went up to about 9 in 2025."
Blunden says the biggest increase they've seen lately is theft, ranging from theft of a motor vehicle, theft under $5,000, and even theft of bicycles. They've been sure to give safety tips on social media to help prepare people for possible theft.
"We've been doing a lot of social media, we've been doing a lot of our public safety messaging, all about locking up your lawn mowers and bikes. We've seen an increase in bike theft. That's one area that we're looking at to do some investigations and maybe set up some good projects to try and curb that a little bit."
July was an even better month according to Blunden, with lower numbers which include crimes against persons down 11 per cent year to date overall, 13 per cent down for crimes against property, and 33 per cent down against controlled drug and substance theft.
Year-to-date figures for the month did continue to see an uptick, similar to June's figures.
"When we move into July for comparing it against the five-year averages, we're still up slightly in crimes against property, but not as much. 213 was the average year to date, five-year averages, and then through 2025 and into July, we're at 233, so about a 9 per cent increase. Everything else is pretty much at par or down."
Blunden says the improvement of the areas' Crime Severity Index also shows good growth, with some confidence that the Estevan area is doing well.
"Overall, we're really happy with what we're doing. There's always room for improvement, and that area should be in the sort of nuisance calls and the minor, we look at them as not as critical, but still significant importance to the individuals that are losing their bikes from their backyards or something and stolen, right? So that's something that we certainly campaign for, and looking to do some projects, especially with the bike thefts."
The Board approved the crime stats in a unanimous motion.