Violent crimes down, property crimes up in Regina in 2022: Report

Regina’s Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) crime rate for 2022 dropped by 0.2 per cent.

Lorilee Davies, the deputy chief of the Regina Police Service, said there’s still work to do despite the rate falling.

“I think that we are doing some things right in the fact that our numbers were showing smaller increases,” said Davies.

The Queen City had the seventh-highest crime rate of the 35 CMAs, with 7,543 reported crimes per 100,000 population. That was a 15 per cent decrease over the past decade.

The violent crime rate was down eight per cent in 2022, and down 13 per cent over the last decade. Regina’s violent crime rate was 18th among CMAs.

The property crime rate was up six per cent from 2021, and down nine per cent over the past 10 years.

Davies said there were high numbers nationally in break-and-enter and robbery rates.

“For me what that indicates is that we really can’t let our foot off the gas,” she said. “We have got to be really proactive on our community.

“We’ve got to think outside the box. We have to work really hard with community partners to address some of these complex issues.”

The total crime severity index fell five per cent in 2022 from the year before, putting Regina fifth among other CMAs. The city’s index was down nine per cent from 2012.

“The fact that those number for homicides were significantly lower in 2022 certainly has a big impact in terms of our crime severity index,” said Davies.

The violent crime severity index was down 16 per cent year over year in 2022, and up nine per cent in the last decade. Regina was No. 5 among the CMAs in 2022.

The non-violent crime severity index was up one per cent in 2022, and down 14 per cent over the past decade. The Queen City ranked sixth among the CMAs in that area.

Davies says work needs to be done when handling the number of opioids and firearms in the city.

The sexual assault rate did see an increase of one per cent in 2022, but a big spike of 43 per cent over the span of a decade.

The RPS works very closely with the Regina Sexual Assault Centre, which helped with unsolved cases. Davies said the work the RPS does with the Regina Sexual Assault Centre has helped lead to better investigations.

“We have been very intentional in providing the best service to people who are victims of sexual assault. Part of that, I think, is the word in the community is that we are doing a better job of those investigations,” said Davies.

Davies said this is also a good opportunity to learn from other jurisdictions that have lower CMA ranks.