For the second year in a row, the South Simcoe Police Service received a record number of calls for service — just as they predicted.
Deputy Chief Sheryl Sutton provided the operational update for December during the board’s monthly meeting in their newly renovated space in the InnPower building in Innisfil on Jan. 22. That showed calls to police surpassed the 30,000 mark for the first time with 30,636 calls for service in 2024 — about a 2.55-per-cent increase compared to the 29,875 calls in 2023, based on updated figures.
Sutton attributed that “historical number of calls,” to the growing populations of both towns, also helped by the service’s online reporting tool, which allows residents to more easily report less urgent matters which may have previously gone unreported.
“It was expected and we don’t see that going down anytime soon,” she said after the meeting. “It’s only going to continue as our communities continue to grow.”
While presenting the service’s 2025 budget to Bradford council on Dec. 17, Chief John Van Dyke said they anticipated about a 2.5-per-cent increase in calls over the previous record year of 2023 — which turned out almost exactly correct.
To help address that increasing demand, the service’s budget added 12 “much needed” positions, including nine new officers (seven constables, one sergeant and one staff sergeant) along with three civilian staff (one special constable, one crown brief/court clerk and one person in human resources), at an estimated cost of about $965,000.
Some trends from 2023 held strong throughout 2024, with a relatively even split of calls between Bradford and Innisfil most months and most of the service’s calls being the lowest priority levels (4 to 7), with fewer priority 2 to 3 and fewer still being the highest priority (1).
Also similar to 2023, in Bradford, patrol zones E (from Holland Street south) and D (from Holland Street north) were consistently the busiest, while in Innisfil patrol zone B (the area east of Sideroad 10 between Line 5 and Line 9) was the busiest single zone each month in 2024 with the exception of February and March when it was second and third, respectively.
In other ways, 2024 differed from the previous year, with some particular calls for service seeing spikes, including:
- Intimate partner violence (IPV) increased to 640 from 506
- Stolen vehicles increased to 156 from 125
- Break and enters increased to 106 from 98
- Assaults increase to 195 from 182
When it comes to IPV, Sutton acknowledged it can be difficult to pinpoint exactly why they increased “significantly,” but suggested it could be the result of people being more willing to make reports and families facing more stress than in previous years.
In other areas, the causes were more obvious, such as break and enters, which could see a spike of incidents if even just a couple people spend an evening hitting three or four stores, and Sutton said that’s precisely what happened in December when businesses were targeted over a few nights.
As a result, the report shows 14 break and enters in December 2024, compared to just five in December 2023.
Still, other areas saw calls for service decline over all of 2024, including:
- Missing person decreased to 108 from 160
- Landlord disputes decreased to 162 from 209
- Theft from vehicles decreased to 96 from 123
- Frauds decreased to 258 from 351
While some of those results could just be happenstance, the last two in particular could also be the result of better educated residents, which is something the service actively encourages.
“That educational piece is very important so people don’t become a victim,” Sutton said. “I certainly think people are more aware.”
Another area that saw a decline was the number of provincial offence notice charges, which decreased to 5,365 in 2024, from 7,043 in 2023. Sutton explained the traffic unit was short-staffed the entirety of 2024, which only became worse half way through the year when another member resigned from the service.
However, the service plans to restore staffing to the unit in 2025, with interviews already underway this week.
Another area that can be difficult to predict is calls for mental health, which decreased slightly to 253 in 2024, compared to 263 in 2023. Even within the same year, changes can seem almost erratic, and calls for mental health decreased to 22 in December 2024 compared to 31 in November 2024 — despite December usually seeing an increase.
“I’m not going to say that our mental health calls are diminishing, because I don’t think that’s the case at all,” Sutton said.
While she hopes the proactive efforts of the Crisis Outreach and Support Team (COAST) have helped, the deputy chief said its important to look at the big picture when it comes to statistics.
“Trends can be very cyclic,” she said. “You kind of need to use year-by-year, and even with a couple months, that’s not indicative of a trend.”
Based on last year’s calls for service, Sutton said her main takeaways for the public are to stay aware of potential crimes, continue to educate themselves on how to avoid becoming a victim, and continue reporting to the police if they feel they have become a victim.
“Please report it to us,” Sutton said. “We don’t know what we don’t know.”
Collisions
The total number of collisions for the year hasn’t yet been reported and there were no operational reports presented for June or July, but those months aside, the average number of collisions per month was about 133 in both towns combined, with about 68 in Bradford and about 65 in Innisfil.
On average each month, 107 resulted in property damage, 13 resulted in personal injury and 12 involved a hit and run.
Common locations for collisions in Bradford were along Holland Street, and in Innisfil along Yonge Street and Innisfil Beach Road.
There were no fatal collisions reported in December, which means the total for the year remains at eight — the same total in as 2018, which had the greatest number of fatal collisions since 2015.
Unlike 2018, which saw one collision result in three fatalities, all of 2024’s fatalities were the result of separate collisions, making 2024 a record year for individual fatal collisions according to Sutton.
Meanwhile, the town where most occur has switched from Bradford in 2018 to Innisfil in 2024.
Sutton previously attributed that to growth, with more people driving longer distances and the roads in Innisfil being more open as settled areas are more spread out when compared to Bradford.