Regina sits near top of Crime Severity rankings once again

The latest police-reported crime statistics for 2018 suggest that crime was a frequent occurrence in Regina last year, and that reported offences were serious.

Prepared by Statistics Canada, the data has two categories: The crime rate measures the volume of crime reported to police; the crime severity index (CSI) measures the severity of those offences, gives heavier scores to more serious crimes and assigns a final CSI value — a homicide would be weighted more heavily than a simple theft.

Neither of the two groupings include incidents that go unreported.

According to Stats Canada’s 2018 numbers, Regina ranked second in the country in both categories, behind only Lethbridge, Alta.

Regina’s crime rate rose eight per cent to 9,521 cases per capita (per 100,000 people) from the year before. Meanwhile, the CSI was up 10 per cent to 126.

Despite being near the top of the rankings for many years, Regina’s overall crime rate and the severity of it has dropped over the last 10 years, which Mayor Michael Fougere said tells a more accurate story of the city.

“We have a safe city. We have a police service that’s working hard every day to look at the antecedents of crime, but (is) also responding to criminal activity as well,” he said.

Last year was a challenging one for law enforcement and the numbers reflect that, the Regina police service said.

Vehicle thefts spiked 51 per cent, an activity Chief Evan Bray said is linked to other crimes.

“A lot of those are very strongly associated to gangs or drugs, and most times will have some implication or involvement with a firearm,” Bray said.

Robberies jumped 26 per cent. Break-and-enters — which the Chief said are the source of many stolen guns in the province — were up 23 per cent.

Crystal meth is believed to be behind many of the offences.

“Meth is causing people to act irrationally, stay up for hours, be paranoid and commit criminal offences,” he said.

Sexual assaults were up eight per cent. Unlike other crimes, they have only increased over the past decade by nine per cent.

In the past, Bray has attributed this to advances in how police investigate cases, as well as the #MeToo movement making it more acceptable for victims to come forward.

Bray said the long-term solution to crime in Regina won’t be locking up offenders, but partnering with higher orders of government and community groups to fix the root causes of it.

“(If) they’re stealing cars to commit crime to feed an addiction, then let’s solve the addiction,” he said.

Stats Canada calculated its final numbers by looking at reported crimes in the Regina census metropolitan area (CMA). That includes the city proper, Grand Coulee, Pense, Belle Plaine, Lumsden, White City, Pilot Butte, Balgonie and other surrounding areas. The reported crimes were handled both by the Regina Police Service and the RCMP.