The eyes and ears of the public are the RCMP’s best weapon to try and stop rural crime, says Adare Guest, commander of the Humboldt and Lanigan detachment.

“As in most areas if the province, our population is starting to migrate more toward the larger communities, so there are areas out there now where there's greater distances between neighbours and different farm sites.

“So what we encourage people to do is keep your eyes open for things that are out of the ordinary out there, and to get to know who your neighbours are and be aware of things that maybe shouldn't be there.”

Rural crime was one of the topics covered at this year’s meeting of the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities.

Guest said crime rates fluctuate over time, but over the past year have stayed fairly consistent.

“We are a fairly major thoroughfare with Highway 16 running through our area, and Highway 5 and Highway 2, so we do get a lot of traffic type of complaints, but the majority of our work would fall to property crimes.”

It’s a challenge covering an area that stretches from Watson to the Highway 2 junction, Middle Lake and Drake, he said.

“We can certainly use all the help we can get from the public, just to be aware of their surroundings and the people that live in their areas and to report anything they see that's unusual out there.”