2024 Belleville Police Annual Report: crime severity below Canada’s 5-year average

The Belleville Police Service’s 2024 Annual Report provided metrics compared to the previous year.

In 2024:

• Total budget increased by 9% to $27,099,700.
• Total calls for service decreased by 3% to 28,593.
• Non-reportable occurrences decreased by 5% to 18,863.
• Property crime dropped across the board:
  • Break and Enter: -43%
  • Auto Theft: -38%
  • Arson: -50%
  • Fraud: -4%
• Violent crime
  • Homicides: 3 (up from 1 in 2023).
  • Attempted Murder: 4 (up from 2 in 2023).
  • Assault: 395, an 11% increase.
  • Utter Threats: 186, a 36% increase.
• Belleville’s Crime Severity Index
  • Overall CSI: 75.4, a 5.7% decrease from 2023 (80.0). (Canada’s 5-year average is 77.33)
  • Non-Violent CSI: 66.7, a 14% decrease from 2023 (77.5). (Canada’s 5-year average is 70.37)
  • Violent CSI: 99.01, a 12.6% increase from 2023 (Canada’s 5-year average is 96.25).

I appreciate the fact that the Belleville Police Service has brought in an annual report for 2024 that finally provides some metrics that have been missing in years past when we’re talking about large expenditures to the budget.

Councillor Carr

Trends

Over the last 5 years, Belleville’s 5-year average Violent Crime Severity Index (CSI) (90.62) is 6% lower than Canada’s average (96.45). Belleville’s Non-Violent CSI average (72.92) has been 3.6% higher than Canada’s average (70.37).

This suggests that, on average, Belleville has recently been slightly safer than the rest of Canada for violent crime but has had a slightly larger issue with property/non-violent crime.

Presentation

The key issues on the other slide with violent crime we want to highlight the homicides an increase of 200%, that was three two more than the year previously. That was significant investigation time and resources and expertise invested.

Attempted murder four of those last year. They’re the same as a homicide in terms of our investigation and they used to be simpler because at one time we had one more witness at least and now we can’t count on the person who was the victim to be a witness. So it is more complex to investigate these kinds of violent offenses. The assaults 11% increase and as I said the violence and the propensity to be violent and or to threaten violence seems to be on an increase in the community.

Belleville Police Chief Murray Rodd