Police in Saskatoon seek money and officers to fight crime

The Saskatoon Police Service is looking for more officers and more money to deal with the strain of policing a growing city which is seeing an upward trend in crime.

The preliminary budget for 2016 will be presented to the Board of Police Commissioners at a meeting today, before being forwarded to city council for consideration.

The request is for an increase of just less than five per cent, or about $3.8 million dollars more than 2015. That would put the total net budget, if approved, at almost $84 million dollars for 2016.

Much of the increase will cover wages.

More police on the streets

The police service is also asking for eight new patrol officers.

The call for more officers comes in a memo written by Chief of Police Clive Weighill.

It reminds the board that Saskatoon has a significant number of serious crimes, and that they "typically require an initial response of a larger number of police officers, and they take longer to investigate."

Saskatoon's crime severity index in 2014 was 65 per cent higher than in the rest of Canada.