The Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics released their crime stats for 2017 - and the news is mixed. 

"Some of the stats are positive," explained  Cpl Rob King media relations officer for F Division. "Some of them are concerning."

The overall crime rate in Saskatchewan has decreased by 3%, property crime decreased by 5% and break and enters were down 12%. However, offences involving firearms rose 71%. 

"But the ones that are concerning we recognize those things were happening last year and already put things in place to try and combat them. The area of concern, of course, is the number of offences involving firearms. That took a sharp and drastic uprise last year. We saw that trend happening last year and this year luckily so far we're not seeing that trend continuing."

The RCMP introduced a number of programs including the Provincial Protection and Response Team that joining forces with Conservation officers and Highway Patrol Officers.

"At that point, we'll see how those programs work. The more community involvement, the more eyes that are out there, the more intelligence you get, the better you can focus your efforts."

"We've always been intelligent-led policing, let the intelligence and information gathering direct your efforts. We started targeting our enforcement a little more. We're trying to disrupt criminal activity and track the prolific offenders. Our crime reduction team that was introduced early 2018 has really focused their policing and conducted many operations in that area of targeting prolific offenders."

The RCMP has also held several Town Hall meetings in communities around the province to hear from residents. 

"Any type of community engagement helps. Like I said, we're intelligence-led policing and the source of most of our intelligence comes from the community itself. So the more the community is involved, the better."