Fredericton crime numbers 'higher than provincial and national average'

Despite the work of Fredericton Police to curb crime, some reported statistics are trending upward.

With less than 60 days left in the year, numbers so far compare with all of 2022.

Comparatively, 2022 had 139 impaired drivers while there have already been 134 so far this year.

"Our non-violent crimes have gone up higher than the provincial and the national average,” said Martin Gaudet, Chief of Fredericton Police. “So we need to pay attention to that, and those non violent crimes are the theft, vandalism, graffiti, damage to property all those things.”

There have been 1,486 thefts this year; last year's total thefts were 1,690.

As for graffiti, there were 126 reports in 2022 and while there were some high-profile instances of graffiti in the Fredericton area, so far this year there have only been 56 reports.

Two cemeteries in the capital, including a veteran’s memorial, were tagged with graffiti during the fall.

Fredericton Police Force are attributing the drop in that number to the introduction of more cameras and community service officers.

"We had to put some resources there and the graffiti file was a very interesting one,” Gaudet said. “We out a lot of resources into it a full time investigator, we had a lot of subject matter experts.”

Those resources led to an arrest of a suspected perpetrator.

"It may be petty to the common person, but these small little crimes are taking so much of the police time, but it's important,” said Bruce McCormack, general manager of Downtown Fredericton Inc.

At a community meeting of businesses on Thursday, owners and organizations shared their concerns with police.

"Their presence is something that we need,” McCormack said. “We need to see them downtown more, we need to see them walking the beat, that is a deterrent, it really helps.”

"If it matters to them it matters to us so how do we know that we're hitting the mark,” said Gaudet.

Fredericton's chief of police is hoping to expand on what they've already been doing.

While crime numbers are up in the capital overall, the chief did point out one positive note: violent crime numbers are down.

"We have to be patient. When you engage in a change, pivot, or try something new, you have to stick with it a bit to see if it has any value,” Gaudet said.

There have been 24,632 calls for service for Fredericton Police to date this year, while 2022 had 30,295 at the year's end.

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