While the total number of calls to the police went down in 2024 for Keremeos compared to the year before, the number of violent crimes went up.
According to the final quarterly report from the RCMP for the year, the number of assaults went up over half, from 33 in 2023 to 54 in 2024.
The last quarter, from October to December, saw a particular spike in 2024, with 13 assaults over the period in 2024 compared to just three in 2023.
The number of sexual offences stayed fairly steady, rising slightly from 13 in 2023 to 15 in 2024, and the number of uttering threat files went down from 22 to 13.
Intimate partner violence also saw an increase, from 21 files in 2023 to 25 in 2024.
Property crime on the other hand saw many categories decrease as certain quarterly trends held out for the whole year.
Break and enters went down in all categories, with a particularly large drop in business break and enters from 10 in 2023 to just two in 2024.
Auto thefts stayed steady between the two years, with 18 in 2023 and 19 in 2024, while the number of thefts from vehicles went down, from 23 in 2023 to 11 in 2024.
An unfortunate trend seen in many other regions was also seen in Keremeos, which is an increase in the number of fraud cases. In the last quarter, it rose from three in 2023 to nine recorded in 2024, and for the year overall the number of fraud files doubled from 18 to 36.
Mischief to property was the other category that saw a large increase in 2024, rising to 54 police incidents, up from 35 in 2023.
The total number of calls for service for the year was down slightly in 2024, dropping from 1,554 in 2023 to 1,459.
Over the last three months of the year, the largest number of calls for service were for traffic incidents, followed by calls to check on someone's well-being and then reporting suspicious circumstances.
