By Josh Hall and Troy Gillard

Red Deer still among Canada’s Most Dangerous Places: MacLean’s

Nov 5, 2018 | 10:23 AM

MacLean’s magazine once again has Red Deer ranked high among “Canada’s Most Dangerous Places.”

Our city had the sixth-highest Crime Severity Index (CSI) for 2017 at 222. Red Deer had Canada’s fifth-highest CSI in 2016 at 207.

North Battleford, Saskatchewan had the country’s highest CSI last year at 372. Wetaskiwin was third at 258.

The Crime Severity Index is a Statistics Canada measure of all police-reported crime taking into consideration both the volume and seriousness of offences. The 2017 data is the most current available and was released July 23, 2018. MacLean’s report cover Canadian communities with populations of at least 10,000 people. The Canadian average when it comes to the CSI for 2017 was 70.96.

Wetaskiwin and Red Deer rank first and second in Canada when it comes to CSI increases over the past five years.

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“Wetaskiwin, Alta., a town of 12,600 about an hour’s drive south of Edmonton, has the fastest-growing crime severity index in the country by a landslide,” MacLean’s wrote. “From 2012 to 2017, Wetaskiwin’s CSI increased 100.63 points to 257.54. For comparison, Red Deer, the community with the second-fastest growing CSI, saw an increase of 58.65 points over five years.”

Inspector Gerald Grobmeier with Red Deer RCMP says these rankings — which he describes as “old data” — don’t accurately represent the current picture of crime in our city.

“It’s frustrating, and perhaps even a bit irresponsible, when MacLean’s shows the rankings like that,” Grobmeier says, “because a layperson just looking at it quickly will see us ranking at number two when in fact that’s not the case.

“If you look at our increase for 2016 to 2017, it was fairly a small increase where other centres around us were having significant increases. We’ve been slowing that ship for a while,” he adds.

Grobmeier says since the beginning of 2018, robberies are down 29 per cent, persons crimes seven per cent, break and enters 13 per cent, theft of motor vehicles 37 per cent, and total property crime 31 per cent.

What’s even more encouraging, he says, is that Red Deerians continue to call in more incidents at an increased rate of 3.5 per cent in 2018.

“It’s a bit deceiving how they’ve done it, showing us as number two. Our ranking nationally has decreased over the last three years. If you look further, our violent crime severity index has us ranked 17th nationally.”

Paul Goranson, The City of Red Deer’s Director of Protective Services, agrees with Grobmeier that people need to take Red Deer’s place in these rankings with a heaping spoonful of salt.

“What we’ve seen these last four quarters is a significant improvement. They’ll be reflected in next year’s report, which we’re really looking forward to,” he insists. “It’s a combination of things. There’s been some consistent approaches to how policing is done, like Pinpoint, which is predominantly focused on prolific offenders. It has been up and running for a year and half now, and some of the results from that are really starting to show.”

Goranson reminds that RCMP data shows a very small percentage of the population is committing the bulk of the crime in Red Deer and central Alberta.

In looking at specific categories of MacLean’s rankings, Red Deer is ranked sixth-worst in Canada for Firearms Offences, eighth-worst for Robberies, third-worst for Breaking and Entering, and ninth-worst for Fraud.

The full top 10 on this year’s MacLean’s list of Canada’s Most Dangerous Places based on the Crime Severity Index are: North Battleford, Thompson, MB, Wetaskiwin, Prince Albert and area, Portage la Prairie, MB, Red Deer, Williams Lake, BC, Quesnel, BC, Langley, BC and Prince George, BC.

Sylvan Lake is ranked 29th (CSI 123) while Lacombe is 77th (83).

The latest edition of MacLean’s magazine’s Canada’s Most Dangerous Places report can be found in its entirety here.