By Matthew Liebenberg
Southwest Booster
The latest community policing report for Swift Current indicates the continuation of a trend of more crimes against persons along with a decrease in property crimes.
Staff Sgt. Evan Gordon, the commanding officer of the Swift Current municipal RCMP detachment, presented the quarterly report at a regular City council meeting, Aug. 17.
The report covers the period April to June 2026, which is the first quarter of the de-tachment’s 2026-27 fiscal year. He also made reference to the crime severity index re-sults for Swift Current for 2025.
“Person crimes this year seem to be on the rise compared to this time last year,” he said. “It’s up slightly. However, compared to two years ago, fairly similar.”
There were 53 reported assaults for the period April to June 2026 compared to 41 for the same period in 2025 and 52 in 2024.
The quarterly report indicates there were nine reported sexual offences from April to June 2026 compared to eight during the same period in 2025 and six in 2024.
Property crimes, which include different break and enter and theft categories, contin-ued to be down compared to the past two years.
There were six residential break and enter offences for the period April to June 2026 compared to 16 during the same period in 2025 and eight in 2024. There were five re-ported break and enter incidents at businesses for this first quarter of 2026 compared to nine in 2025 and seven in 2024.
There were 57 reported incidents of theft under $5,000 for the period April to June 2026 compared to 82 in 2025 and 75 for the same period in 2024. There were 11 incidents of theft over $5,000 for this period in 2026 compared to 13 in 2025 and 10 in 2024.
There was a significant increase in the number of reportable vehicle accidents. The quarterly report shows 34 such incidents for the April to June 2026 period compared to 22 in 2025 and 21 in 2024.
“They’re up compared to years previous with almost half of those involving intersection infractions,” he said. “A quick search on the internet shows that a lot of municipal cen-tres see the same as us and approximately half, between 40 and 60 per cent of report-able collisions, are intersection related.”
According to Gordon it is not surprising that so many of these reportable vehicle acci-dents happen at intersections, where traffic from different directions will converge.
“Luckily no major injuries have been reported,” he said. “However, the potential is cer-tainly there for serious injuries and property damage. These intersections are in busi-ness and residential areas. You’re literally right on top of people’s yards, sidewalks, driveways, and in some cases houses where there are minimal front yards in play. So, the potential for damage and personal injury are quite high.”
He added that RCMP officers in Swift Current have issued 81 tickets and 123 warnings for intersection related offenses since the beginning of 2026. Thirty-four of those tick-ets were issued during the April to June period.
“People can expect that if you’re driving and we see you fail to stop at a stop sign or fail to stop properly for a red light, you more likely than not will be receiving a ticket for it,” he said.
The detachment’s efforts to promote traffic safety during the April to June period re-sulted in charges against 14 drivers for impaired driving and four roadside suspen-sions were issued. Nine warnings were issued for cell phone use and 26 drivers were charged for using these devices while driving.
In addition to these regular enforcement actions by the detachment, there was a joint effort with Saskatchewan Highway Patrol during the Frontier Days period in late June.
“As a result of their combined efforts, three impaired drivers were taken off the road, which is down from years past, but certainly not from lack of presence,” he said. “And 25 suspensions, whether it be by drug or alcohol, were issued and those suspension numbers are up considerably.”
Gordon mentioned that this year’s Frontier Days was a fairly average and uneventful event from a policing perspective. The RCMP received 55 calls for service, which were similar to last year’s 52, and there were no assaults or disturbances on the grounds. He gave credit to the event planning committee for ensuring an adequate security pres-ence.
There was one fatal drug overdose during the previous quarterly reporting period of January to March 2026. There were five illicit drug overdoses during the most recent reporting period of April to June 2026, but none were fatal.
“Three of those five occurred at the same location by a group of people that were using an illicit substance together,” he said.
The RCMP executed a search warrant in the city during May, which resulted in charg-es against a male for drug possession for the purpose of trafficking of methampheta-mine as well as weapons offenses.
“That male was later checked on conditions and found to be in possession of further illicit substances, and he had his bail subsequently revoked,” he said.
The detachment’s Police and Crisis Team (PACT) worker Karla Rempel dealt with 30 different calls for service or referrals from April to June 2026, which was a similar number compared to previous quarters.
“Her attendance resulted in one diversion from custody,” he said. “The program defi-nitely provides us a lot of value for our detachment action plan.”
Gordon’s presentation also included a broader perspective about crime trends in the community by referring to data from the 2025 crime severity index, which was released in July 2026. This data is collected and published by Statistics Canada.
“The way the crime severity index works is different crimes have different weights based on the severity,” he explained.
The overall crime severity index for Swift Current in 2025 was 102.73 compared to 146.46 for the province as a whole.
“We are well under that provincial average,” he said. “The decrease was largely driven by a drop in break and enters, robberies and serious assaults.”
The 2025 crime severity index of 102.73 for Swift Current was 5.25 per cent lower than the city’s 2024 index number of 108.42.
“A big reason for our 5.2 per cent reduction was that we saw a 14 per cent reduction in our non-violent crime,” he said.
The city’s non-violent crime severity index for 2025 was 97.71 compared to 113.88 in the previous year.
“We saw decreases in areas such as mischiefs and frauds, two areas which I’ve talked about in the past that can be an indicator of an increase in crime in our community,” he said. “However, the big decrease was largely driven by a 42 per cent drop in break and enters.”
A significant factor in the detachment’s success to reduce break and enters in the community was the focus on doing curfew and release condition checks on offenders. There was a 30 per cent increase in administration of justice offenses due to breaching of conditions. It resulted in extra charges against offenders and their bail was revoked.
The only crime category with a higher index number for the city in 2025 was the violent crime severity index, which increased by 21 per cent from 97.04 in 2024 to 117.45 in 2025.
“The big driving factor behind that was a single homicide that occurred in the city in August 2025,” he explained. “We also saw small increases in reports of things like computer luring, harassments and threats as well as sexual assaults and minor as-saults.”
However, Swift Current’s violent crime severity index of 117.45 in 2025 was still signif-icantly lower than the overall provincial index number for violent crime of 194.27.
Gordon provided an update on the current staffing situation at the City detachment. Two officers have arrived in recent months. There will be a transfer of an officer to an-other detachment during September, but he will be replaced by a new constable from the RCMP training depot.
“At that point, all of our municipal positions will be filled, which is good,” he said. “There’s always movement and I’m hoping that with future movement we’re going to remain at or above our full-time establishment for as long as we can.”
