Thompson may be near the top of the nation when it comes to crime severity, according to Statistics Canada’s police-reported Crime Severity Index (CSI), but 2014 figures show that its score is dwarfed by those of many of the smaller communities surrounding it.
The five police services with the highest CSI in Northern Manitoba are Leaf Rapids, with an overall CSI of 615.28, Shamattawa (602.84), Pukatawagan (598.64), Chemawawin (552.66) and Grand Rapids (462.18).
By comparison, Thompson’s overall CSI was 212.2, third-highest in the country among cities with 10,000 or more people, behind North Battleford, Sask. (274.53) and Williams Lake, B.C. (235.23).
Nationally, the CSI was 66.7 and decreased by three per cent, the 11th-straight year that the overall index score has dropped. For Manitoba as a whole, the CSI was 95.89.
The violent crime severity index was also far beyond Thompson’s index score of 221.04 in Pukatawagan, where it was 1,175.73, Shamattawa (1,124.06), Chemawawin (1,005.59), Leaf Rapids (994.54) and Nisichwayasihk Cree Nation (654.42). Manitoba’s violent crime severity index was 126.92.
Leaf Rapids had the highest non-violent crime severity index – 475.99 – followed by Shamattawa (411.93), Grand Rapids (398.15), Pukatawagan (387.41) and Chemawawin (386.70). Manitoba’s non-violent crime security index score was 84.40.
Despite being second in Northern Manitoba in all three indices, Shamattawa’s 2014 scores were actually an improvement on the previous year, with all three scores down 24 per cent or more from 2013.
Conversely, the scores for Leaf Rapids were up drastically from the previous year, with the CSI going up 45.1 per cent, the violent crime severity index increasing by 58.03 per cent and the non-violent crime severity index increasing by 36.6 per cent from 2013.
The CSI is calculated by assigning various crimes different weights based on seriousness as measured by each crime’s incarceration rate and the average prison sentence courts mete out for each crime. The weighted offences are then added up and divided by population. The CSI is standardized to a base of 100 which is derived from the index values for the year 2006.
