The North Bay Police Service is concerned about a significant increase in the amount of break and enters they are investigating.
In September of 2018, the North Bay Police had 202 reported break and enters but in September of 2019 that number has increased to 320.
“Yes that is about a 37 per cent increase that we are seeing year to date on the break and enters,” said Deputy Chief Mike Daze at Tuesday’s Police Board Meeting.
“We have had an increase, we see a decrease in some other crimes but that is certainly an area of concern for us.
“We are seeing an increase in our calls for service, we are seeing a four per cent increase in the calls and some of that is attributed to certain crimes and break and enters is definitely one and that is something we have been seeing over the last few months.”
Daze admits many of those involved in local break and enters are repeat offenders but not all of them. However, he believes North Bay is facing challenges many other cities this size are.
“It is no secret we are dealing with challenges that we are facing not only in our downtown core but throughout the city as many towns and cities are with opioid crisis and the challenges related to our socio-economic stuff so when we see crimes like break and enters we can see some connection there and there are lots of things we look to do proactively as we can as a police service but also working with our partnerships that the city of North Bay is currently working on to try and tackle those and hopefully see a reduction,” he said.
Daze believes there are some easy steps residents and businesses can make to help bring those numbers down.
“Crimes like break and enter are serious and I think there are some things we can collectively do as a community and working together to provide some of that education,” he said.
“For example, just locking up your car is easy and it’s free and that is one of the preventative measures that we can take to reduce that. As well as making sure our houses are locked and putting on security cameras and the costs of security cameras are coming down.”
