While police crack down on organized crime in larger cities in Saskatchewan, criminals are retreating to smaller city centres to do their "dirty business" there, the police chief in Moose Jaw says.

Terry Coleman said he supports the provincial government's efforts to spend more on police officers and prosecutors, but he said the tougher law enforcement is forcing criminals to migrate to more rural cities like Moose Jaw.

"If there's not enough room for all these people in a community such as Regina, they tend to move elsewhere and find other markets and other places to do their dirty business," Coleman said.

"We've had them involved in assaults and intimidation, possibly collecting drug debts. They come to our attention with increasing frequency," he said.

Coleman said his officers are now struggling to control a growing number of crimes he believes are related to gang activity, and he wants the province to spend more to hire additional officers to patrol smaller centres.

"We used to have 20 investigators in the '80s in our criminal investigation section," he said. "On paper we have seven now, but in actual fact we usually have four or five."

Justice Minister Frank Quennell took issue with what Coleman was saying, and cited a drop in the province's crime rate in recent years.

2 shot dead in Fort Qu'Appelle

"The crime rate in the province of Saskatchewan has declined in each of the years since the government was re-elected," Quennell said.

Former gang members Jeff McCaig and Garret Cherney said they know that gangs are active in Moose Jaw.

Cherney said he decided to walk away from his previous lifestyle after a member of a rival gang slit the throat of one of his friends from behind.

"That's when I had enough of it," he said.

Last month in the valley town of Fort Qu'Appelle, another smaller Saskatchewan community, two people were killed and three hospitalized in a shooting. Neighbours and family members of the victims have said gang warfare might have been behind the shooting.

Referring to that incident, Quennell said personal violence between gang members doesn't mean the shooting was gang-related.