Police calls for service jump 14 per cent 2019
Windsor police responded to 125,176 calls for service in 2019, a 14-per-cent increase over the previous year.
The service’s 2019 Year End Report, outlining statistics on everything from firearms calls to general patrol work to driving offences, was presented Thursday to members of the Windsor Police Services Board.
Supt. Frank Providenti said after the meeting that much of the increase in calls for service by patrol members is attributable to homelessness and drug addiction or mental-health issues.
“Obviously, those are issues that we don’t have control of,” Providenti said.
“There are other agencies that take carriage of that. But still we’re called. We try to provide the services to those people that need them.”
In Amherstburg, where the Windsor service began policing in 2019, the detachment responded to 6,278 calls for service — an increase of 13 per cent — resulting in 193 arrests.
Impaired driving stats show an uptake of almost 17 per cent in 2019 over 2018, both alcohol- and cannabis-related.
Providenti said one of the factors contributing to the increase in charges for impaired driving is growing community engagement.
“We do a good job of reaching out to our community to explain the dangers of impaired driving,” Providenti said.
“And it’s a Priority 1 call (for police),” he added. “We’re getting more calls in from citizens regarding impaired drivers.”
Those citizen calls, along with RIDE programs and other police interactions, led to a 16.7 per cent rise in impaired driving-related occurrences, or 293 vs. 251 in 2018.
“Our RIDE program is out there every year and we see success with that too,” he said.
Provincial offence notices for traffic infractions such as running red lights, speeding or distracted driving, also jumped sharply in 2019.
Police issued 26,748 notices compared to 17,824 in 2018.
When Amherstburg’s 3,409 notices are excluded, Windsor’s numbers show a 31-per-cent increase.
“We’re getting our members to be more enforcement minded in regards to road safety,” Providenti said.
“We wrote 9,000 more tickets this year, which gives us more interaction with the public,” he said. “We talk to more people, more drivers, and we are able to assess their driving.”
That personal interaction has helped police catch more impaired drivers, as well.
“More enforcement obviously is going to increase our stats. That doesn’t mean the problem is getting worse, it just means we’re out there more and we’re catching people at a higher rate.”