The number of sex offenders registered with Chatham-Kent police grew in 2022.
In their annual 2022 report, police said a total of 299 local sex offenders were registered on the Ontario Sex Offender Registry last year, an increase of 10 from 2021.
Police data showed 296 are men and three are women.
Police also reported five sex offenders were arrested and charged last year for not complying with their obligations to register and update police as required by law and two are currently not compliant. However, Chatham-Kent police noted they are "consistently in the top tier" of police services in Ontario for compliance percentage.
Police said all sex offenders on the registry in the Chatham-Kent area are on their police internal computer system and are tracked.
The police data showed the highest percentage of local registered sex offenders are 70 and older (21.4%) and almost half of the total number of registered sex offenders in the municipality (43.7%) were convicted of sexual assault.
The annual report also showed the number of child abuse cases increased slightly last year, however, over the past four years it has remained relatively consistent.
Police also reported slightly fewer child abuse arrests and charges in 2022.
Police also noted sexual assault investigations went up from 39 in 2021 to 46 last year while arrests dropped from 28 to 12 and charges decreased from 76 to 60.
The number of reported intimate partner crime occurrences also dropped from 1,839 in 2021 to 1,788 last year, according to Chatham-Kent police.