Violent crime rates have risen steadily across Canada over the last decade and things are not much different in this province.

The latest figures released by Statistics Canada show that the total number of violent Criminal Code violations across the country rose from 382,115 in 2015 to more than 570,000 in 2023, with firearms incidents in particular more than doubling from 2,300 in 2015 to more than 5,000 in 2023.

Extortion cases have risen by astounding levels, from 3,055 in 2015 to close to 14,000 in 2023, the stats show.

Vehicle thefts have also gone up significantly from about 79,000 to nearly 115,000 over the last decade.

Sexual assaults, which are grouped into three separate categories, have also increased in frequency.

In NL, the total number of violent crimes rose from 7228 in 2015, to 10,000 in 2023.

In this province, homicide rates ranged from 2 to as high as 8 in some years over the last decade, but extortion saw the biggest jump in numbers from just 19 reports in 2015, to 202 in 2023.

Vehicle theft rates were relatively stable between 2015 and 2021 at approximately 450 a year, before jumping into the 600s in 2022 and 23.