Nobody should be surprised to see Estevan experience a significant increase in the crime severity index (CSI) report recently released by Statistics Canada.
Estevan's CSI value stood at 115.48 for 2023, a significant increase from 87.25 a year earlier. And our violent crime number was at 163.92, the highest it has ever been since the figure was first tracked in 1998.
The tragic events that occurred in our community on Nov. 1 of last year – which left two people dead and a member of the Estevan Police Service fighting seriously injured – certainly played a big role in the CSI increase. When you're in a small community and you have a murder and an attempted murder case, your ranking is going to get skewed. Take away the one incident, our CSI is a lot closer to what we saw in 2022, which was one of the lowest numbers for Estevan.
The CSI always makes for interesting reading, but we have to take it with a grain of salt. It's likely better for larger communities than small ones. A murder will have a big impact on the CSI of a small city. In Montreal, it won't do much to change the number.
An interesting change for this year is Statistics Canada's decision to no longer create a comparative table for all of the police departments that serve at least 10,000 people, thanks to pressure applied by some of the municipalities that typically lead the country. It means the days of Thompson, Man., or North Battleford being hailed as Canada's Crime Capital are mercifully over.
If one incident like what we had last year in Estevan can impact our numbers that much, imagine what would happen when you have numerous murder or attempted murder charges, or other crimes with a heavy weight on the CSI.
(It is worth noting that both North Battleford and Thompson had their number increase again this year. We don't know for certain if one of them would have been Canada's crime capital, or if a community having a really bad year would have beaten them).
Now that Stats Canada doesn't have the one monolithic report for communities above 10,000, it would be interesting to see how it would look if Stats Can were to have one report for communities, say, 1000,000 or more, those 50,000-99,999, and a third for those 10,000-49,999. Based on the number of reports they released last week, StatsCan has a lot of time to compile reports, so why not three more?
We'd be fooling ourselves if we thought the police don't pay some attention to the figures. They do. But it's not the most important document they receive each year. The EPS won't be popping champagne corks if the CSI is at an all-time low, as it was close to reaching in 2022. And they won't be having a massive internal review if it's high. Keep in mind they already have information on the number and types of incidents in the community each month and each year. But they wouldn't have the weighted crime data, or how it compares with other communities of a similar size.
Perhaps the best illustration of the CSI formula's failing is that Estevan's CSI was higher than the number for Surrey, B.C., and Toronto. But where would you feel safer? We'd likely all say Estevan. You can walk on your own in Estevan at night. And most will tell you Estevan is a safe community.
But we also have to be smart. The days of being able to leave your doors unlocked at all times, or being able to leave a vehicle with the keys in the ignition and the doors unlocked are over. There's a difference between feeling safe and being foolish.
So let's categorize the CSI report for what it is: an intriguing report, particularly for those who are into numbers, but one that has its failings, especially for those who are outside of big cities.
