RCMP in the Northwest Territories have begun sharing monthly statistical summaries on social media.
A summary of June data, shared to Facebook on Friday, stated that police had dealt with 132 incidents related to mental health that month, carried out 151 well-being checks on people, and received 23 reports of missing persons.
Twenty-seven impaired driving charges were laid, 242 common assaults and 25 sexual offences were reported, and there were 343 complaints of property crime.
The statistics are not broken down by community. In some of the territory’s larger communities, RCMP already provide monthly figures that are published by municipal councils. (As examples, here is the May 2023 report from Inuvik RCMP, or you can read the May 2023 report from Fort Smith RCMP.)
Over time, the sharing of monthly data could allow insights into policing and justice trends in the NWT.
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The territory’s chief superintendent, who has been in the job since November, told reporters last week that a full-time communications officer had been hired – the first time the territory’s RCMP division is understood to have had such a role in years – with a view to making the division more proactive in its outreach.
RCMP said the 4,096 calls for service received in June represented an 8.4-percent increase on the same month last year, but a 5.4-percent drop compared to last month.
The data does not come with an accompanying analysis.
Media relations officer Cpl Matt Halstead said the statistics are “intended to provide the public with an overview of what our officers were responding to in the previous month, and to highlight trends in the Northwest Territories.”
