By paNOW Staff

Saskatchewan has highest crime rates in country

Jul 22, 2015 | 1:19 PM

While Saskatchewan is a leader in many areas, the province once again takes the top spot in the most unflattering of categories.

Numbers released Wednesday morning by Statistics Canada through the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics show police-reported crime figures for 2014, and Saskatchewan leads all provinces in both crime rate and the Crime Severity Index (CSI).

Crime rate measures the number of crimes per 100,000 population. The CSI accounts for the seriousness of crimes by considering conviction rates and sentence lengths.

The silver lining is year-over-year, both of those categories are dropping provincewide. The report highlights one of the main reasons CSI is falling is because of a decrease in police-reported incidents of trafficking, and production or distribution of cocaine.

The province’s two largest cities didn’t fare any better. Saskatoon leads all Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs) in crime rate and CSI, driven primarily by an increase in breaking and entering. That snatches the unfitting CSI crown away from the Queen City, which has consistently been at the top of that category.

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Saskatoon may lead all CMAs, but Regina sits right behind the Bridge City in both crime rate and CSI. The difference is Regina continues to see a decrease in crime, while Saskatoon actually saw an increase from 2013 to 2014.

As far as Canada goes, crime and how severe it is continues to decline for the 11th consecutive year. The country had the lowest CSI since the stat began being tracked in 1998. However, there was a sharp increase in the number of police-reported child pornography cases, up 41 per cent, as well as terrorism cases, up 39 per cent.

The full report can be viewed here.

In Prince Albert, there was an 11 per cent jump in crime in 2014, compared to 2013.

The crime severity index was up six per cent year over year. The violent crime rate was up eight per cent.

paNOW will have comments from Prince Albert Police Chief Troy Cooper Thursday morning.

KMartel@rawlco.com
Follow on Twitter: @KevinMartel

by paNOW Staff

Saskatchewan has highest crime rates in country

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