(File photo/ paNOW Staff)

By Nigel Maxwell

Crime Stats

Violent crime up in Prince Albert but property crimes dropping, says new report

Jul 23, 2019 | 2:02 PM

The 2018 Crime Statistics and Crime Severity Index (CSI) report, released by Statistic Canada this week, offers a mixed bag of news for Prince Albert.

In terms of its overall crime severity index from 2017 to 2018, Prince Albert dropped from fourth to sixth (out of 300 communities); and specifically for non-violent crimes which includes break and enters, shoplifting and theft of stolen property, the city dropped from third to seventh. Deputy Chief Jason Stonechild told paNOW he was not satisfied.

“Even though we saw improvements, it’s nothing to celebrate and we are going to work extremely hard to look at this and try to figure out what the underpinning issues are,” he said.

On the flip side of the coin, last year’s Crime Severity Index showed there was a 14 per cent increase in violent crimes reported by the police service from the year prior. Sexual assaults, robberies, forcible confinement and violence against children were among the specific violations which saw increases. Stonechild said social issues such as poverty and drug use are contributing factors, as well as gang violence.

“Those are some of the underpinning issues that we have to address and tackle as a province, not just as our service, but as a province we are going to have a unified front and we are going to really start to focus resources on those issues,” Stonechild said.

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The Crime Severity Index (CSI) measures the number of crimes per 100,000 population. The CSI accounts for the seriousness of crimes by considering conviction rates and sentence lengths. Prince Albert’s CSI in 2018 (238.04) was based on a population of 37,000 people but Stonechild argues the population figure should be much higher, given the call volumes reported by police, and other public services, as well as the numbers reported by the retail sector.

“If we could truly capture what our average population is at any given time, I think it would be recognized that we are quite a bit lower,” he said.

According to a post on the Prince Albert Police Facebook page, they plan to spend the next few weeks reviewing the detailed report.

“While the recent report does not reflect 2019 call numbers, members with the police service review statistics on a daily basis to study trends and ensure resources are being deployed in an accurate and effective manner,” the post said.

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nigel.maxwell@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @nigelmaxwell