At the most recent Estevan Board of Police Commissioners meeting, the Estevan Police Service laid out some of the statistics for the month of January, starting off 2026.

The stats, which encompass only January, took a look at the numbers compared to 2025's figures. EPS Chief Jamie Blunden chimed in with some of the numbers.

"Crimes against persons, we're holding our own there. In 2025, we had 11. This year in January, we have 10. So, we're slightly down in that area, about 9 percent."

"Crimes against property, we're seeing an uplift here. We do have an increase. We went from 20 overall in January of last year to 39 this year. That's a significant increase."

Blunden expounded on the cause of the 95 per cent uptick this year, relaying that a look at their records management system showed one individual was behind many break-ins.

"When I look at the break-and-enters this month, there's one individual. We classify him as a vulnerable person in our community. He's an addictions person that was involved in a couple of places that he booked into. We laid some charges in that."

The person was held until their court cases, with a couple of other reports also being filed for the person.

In another case, the EPS were able to make an arrest following some forensic work in the community.

"There was one here in a garage. Our (forensics officer) was able to go down and be able to pull some fingerprints off. We identified somebody. In turn, we were able to have that turned over to Regina, and they were able to catch up with this individual in a stolen vehicle. They laid some charges for break-and-enter in Regina as well as here. They had some drugs, some cash, and some firearms off the street because of our good work with the forensics officer."

The EPS even managed to spot some crimes that lead to arrests thanks to patrols in the southeast.

"In January, we were able to interrupt some of the break-ins in the industrial area. We were doing some patrol and some training with our drones, and we were able to identify some properties that were broken into. Again, our forensics officer was able to pull some prints off of there, where we were able to identify a suspect through video, and again, arrested in Regina in possession of a stolen vehicle."

Some assaults and assaults causing bodily harm were also looked at, just slightly above 2025's numbers, with Blunden explaining some of the circumstances.

"The assault causing bodily harm happened one night at one of the local pubs. Some bear spray was used when three people were actually fighting at that location, and so he ended up pepper-spraying some individuals there. Everybody just walked away. The other assaults that we have were more domestic in nature."

Criminal Code traffic violations also surged, seeing a 100 per cent increase from four to eight between 2025 and 2026.

Blunden attributes the increase to more members being on the road able to catch violations.

"I can tell you that we have built some of the vacancies because we have some members that have come back. Our numbers, as you see as we move forward, we have a lot more deployable resources, and as a result, there's more work being done. So, have some faith in that, that we're actually in there doing more traffic enforcement. That's where those are up."

Charges in the Controlled Drugs & Substances Act was at one, similar to 2025's numbers.

Blunden stated that his outlook is good for the year ahead with plenty of ways to address the numbers.

"Overall, I think we're in a good spot. We do know that we have some property crimes that we want to look at and make sure that we get that out to everybody. Overall, though, I think the members did a fantastic job doing the investigations into that."

Total calls for service in January 2026 were 17 per cent higher, coming in at 524 compared to 2025's 446.