The Moose Jaw Police Service is digging into the latest crime severity index (CSI) data to determine whether the increase in offences is a one-off or a pattern that needs addressing.
Statistics Canada — through the Canadian Centre for Justice — recently released data ranking Canadian municipalities on the 2021 CSI index, with Moose Jaw receiving a rating of 127.18 and placing 37th out of 325 communities with a population over 10,000.
Moose Jaw ranked 59th in 2020 with a CSI rating of 104.28, a jump of 32 places year over year.
North Battleford, Prince Albert and Yorkton had higher CSI ratings than The Friendly City, while Saskatoon, Regina, Swift Current, Estevan, Weyburn, Martensville and Warman had lower ratings.
In 2019, Moose Jaw was ranked 51st nationally — with a rating of 110.35 — and fourth provincially.
“We never like to look at anything as an isolated incident. We kind of look at things over a period of time, so we have started to kind of examine the data to see where it goes,” said Deputy Chief Rick Johns.
The CSI was created to better understand crime rates and give offences a rating based on their severity, he explained. Previously, all crimes were ranked equally; today, a homicide could be rated at 1,000 and a robbery at one.
The index is divided into sub-categories of violent crime and non-violent crime, and while both are important, the former sub-category is a better measurement of safety when compared to other municipalities, Johns pointed out.
“We’ve kind of taken an initial review of the 2021 data that came out in July and it has shown an uptick in non-violent crime severity index for Moose Jaw, which appears to be driving the numbers of the overall crime severity index,” he said.
Moose Jaw’s violent CSI rating last year was 81.61, compared to 69.81 in 2020, an increase of 16.9 per cent, the Statistics Canada data shows. Meanwhile, the city’s non-violent CSI rating last year was 143.26, compared to 116.42 in 2020, an increase of 23.05 per cent.
One reason the overall CSI data increased is that there was a jump in residential break-ins last year compared to the year before, to 165 incidents from 115, said Johns.
“Some of these increases were anticipated for 2021 (in) comparison to previous years because a lot of people were at home (in 2020) due to the pandemic and there was decreased opportunity for people to break into homes,” he continued.
One way to address break-ins is through education and informing homeowners and business owners how they can protect themselves, he pointed out.
Another factor contributing to the increase is arson, which happened more in 2021 than in 2020, said Johns. The police service believes arson numbers will decrease because its investigators identified a suspect, charged that person with four such offences, and connected the individual to others.
This information is still preliminary, so the police service will “do a deeper dive” into the data, he continued. Statistically, the organization is seeing success with maintaining community safety, but it will focus more on non-violent CSI data to determine what is driving that.
“… Obviously, we’re aware and we want to be vigilant to make sure we’re addressing problems as they arise,” Johns remarked. “But I don’t think there is a cause to hit any alarm buttons or alarm bells at this point.”
“I believe so,” the deputy chief said when asked if Moose Jaw is still a safe community, pointing out the community has a lower overall CSI rating than other Saskatchewan cities. “I think we’re still … a safe community.”
