The crime severity index (CSI) for the city of Estevan reached a new low in 2017.
According to information released by Statistics Canada on Monday morning, the Estevan municipal CSI – the area covered by the Estevan Police Service (EPS) – was at 75.72, the lowest it’s been since Statistics Canada started tracking the figure in 1998.
The previous low was 75.73 reached in 2000.
Estevan ranked No. 103 in the country.
Police Chief Paul Ladouceur said the EPS has seen a decline in the local CSI figure over the last two years, since it was at 128.50 in 2015.
“I’m always optimisticly cautious when I look at crime severity index stats and so forth, because there are so many variables involved, but obviously it does play into what we look at as far as our benchmark of how we’re doing,” said Ladouceur.
“While we don’t want to rely solely on statistics, it is one of the things we do look at, obviously. To see us going in that lower direction is obviously a positive thing.”
The city's violent crime severity index – which includes assaults and sex crimes – stood at 71.94, a 3.58 per cent decrease. The non-violent crime index, which ranges from mischief complaints to most impaired driving and drug-related arrests, was at 76.90, a decrease of 28.50 per cent.
The national ranking was 23rd in 2015 and 52nd in 2016.
“In 2015, to be 23rd on the list of all those communities (in the country), isn’t where you want to be. When you start getting to 103, it’s certainly looking good,” said Ladouceur.
Estevan ranked 104th in Canada for non-violent crime and 110th in violent crime last year.
The police chief believes the changes that have been made in the organization, with the introduction of a dedicated Drug/Intelligence Unit and a Criminal Investigations branch, have paid off. Also beneficial is the work the EPS is doing in the community for crime prevention and deterrence.
“The members of this organization are doing an absolutely fantastic job,” said Ladouceur.
The community has also been very supportive.
“We see the number of phone calls increasing constantly from people in this community calling to report incidents of drug trafficking and incidents of impaired driving, and all kinds of criminal activity, that we weren’t seeing quite as robust in the past,” said Ladouceur.
A high number of impaired drivers who have been apprehended have come in through the Report Impaired Drivers line.
When people call the police to report a drug complaint, Ladouceur said they need to be able to trust the police to keep their identity confidential, and they need to know the police will do something.
Other factors are also at work, he said, include the reduced activity in the oil industry in recent years.
He also stressed that one serious violent offence in a given year can skew the CSI rating for a community.
“There’s a little bit of luck that plays into that, too, that we have to be realistic about. But overall, we’re talking to people in the community, and people are telling us they feel safe in this community.”
Optics are important in a safe community, he said. If someone doesn’t feel safe walking around the community in the evening, then that’s a concern. But generally he believes the public feels very safe.
“A lot of times we see people that just don’t feel safe in communities, whereas the community might be very safe,” said Ladouceur.
While Ladouceur has said previously that he felt safe in Estevan, he feels safer than he did two years ago.
As for the Estevan RCMP, the CSI rating was 86.79, a .17 per cent decrease from 86.93 CSI rating recorded in 2016.
The violent crime rating was 59.50, a 44.87 per cent increase, while the non-violent crime rating was 96.40, a 6.61 per cent decrease.
In a news release, the Saskatchewan RCMP said it is focusing on intelligence-led policing by collecting and analyzing information and data to conduct strategic patrols and deploy resources as effectively and efficiently as possible.
The RCMP says it is targeting enforcement to disrupt criminal activity and track prolific offenders. The crime reduction team (CRT) that was introduced in early 2018 has focused on this type of policing and has conducted multiple operations with what the RCMP called encouraging results.
In partnership with the provincial government, this has led to the creation of two permanent CRTs beginning in September.
The RCMP will also work with law-enforcement partners through integrated street teams, combined forces teams and the newly-formed Provincial Protection and Response Team.
They are working with communities and other agencies to develop partnerships and programs to prevent and reduce crime.
Over 100 Saskatchewan communities are either developing or already operating rural crime watch or citizens on patrol programs.
Community engagement is also a priority for the RCMP, as meetings have been taking place around the province.
Saskatchewan’s overall CSI for 2017 was 140.51, down three per cent from 149.71 the previous year.
The CSI measures both the volume and severity of crimes reported to the police. To calculate the CSI, each violation is assigned a weight. CSI weights are based on the violation's incarceration rate, as well as the average length of prison sentence handed down by criminal courts. The more serious the average sentence, the higher the weight for that offence.
To calculate the CSI, the weighted offences are summed and then divided by the population. As with the other indexes, to simplify comparison, the CSI is then standardized to a base year of 100 (for the CSI, the base year is 2006). All CSI values are relative to the Canada-level CSI for 2006.
