Murders were up in 2018

The SPVM annual report is in on 2018. There were more murders and attempted murders than in 2017 – 32 homicides, vs. 24 in 2017.

(I’d just been noticing that we haven’t had a homicide on the island since March, and there have been only six so far this year. So there’s no reason for alarm.)

Sexual assault numbers were way up last year compared to 2017, but the theory is that the surge of media attention to such incidents may have encouraged victims to make complaints.

Another part of the report says taser use is up although the word “exponential” in the headline is deceiving. A jump from 236 to 383 incidents is not exponential.

CTV has a more complete summary of crime stats overall.