Well I guess we have to celebrate small improvements, even though PG’s crime severity is extremely high; ranking 18th out 300 Canadian cities. I will start celebrating when PG ranks 150, or better yet 200, out of 300 cities on the crime severity index. We have a long ways to go to get to normal, or average, when it comes to crime severity.

I agree with Sophic Sage.
22 is better than number 1. That said, I do have an issue with the way stats Canada conducts studies like this. They take the population of those only in the city boundaries of PG. In reality, PG’s population is greater than that. Also, this doesn’t take in consideration the fact we are the largest city in hundreds of kms. Just like how we’re a hub for business, there’s going to be a natural draw of illegal industries. Most of our violent crime is targeted, and a result of the drug trade.

Sure pg has a population of approx. 80,000 – but we’re the major urban center for Northern BC (350,000 people).

Still, most of the larger communities in central and northern BC rank near the top of the list. I guess we are still “the wild west”. What the heck is going on in Quesnel and Williams Lake ?

There are also provincial tables on statscan site for crime severity index. For 2014, Yukon went up by 11.13% and BC by 3.4%. All others went down. So we went down while the province went up.

In violent crime PEI went up, Saskatchewan, and Yukon

What place did Abbottsford come in ? Sorry 02, just wondering.

Tat’s OK We really don’t care where we stand but check it out and you can come back with more of your PC crap.
Cheers

02….PC crap ? Twat do yo men? Yo spek funy lingiuge sins yo movd south.

Typical reaction – stats go down and it’s “look what we did”. Stats go up and it’s “beyond our control.”

What should be explored more by the media is the trend that has communities that have RCMP also having higher crime stats. This is primarily because the national force is contracted so creates more paperwork. The RCMP tend to create a file on every call. For municipal forces, the officers don’t waste time generating a file on the petty stuff and therefore they have less total files/cases. Dam statistics!

It is also worth observing that the fact is crime in Canada continues to drop and is close to an all time low. We are also one of the safest countries on the face of the planet. The media waste no time telling us when there is violent crime and it certainly is disturbing but on a national level crime is down yet cities and municipalities are pumping more and more money into their policing budget.

Go figure.

Maybe it is “fear” that we are trying to fight or in the case of some elected folks, it is advantageous to spread the fear as a means to justify increased expenditures and greater limitations on our personal liberties and privacy.

I agree with your perspective, particularly the last part of your comment.

I have to wonder how PG stacks up against any similar sized city in the U.S. I think that if we took 300 similar per capita stats PG would rank pretty far down on that list.

neighborhoodscout.com/wa/bellingham/crime

This is a great site which compares data for cities. Just enter city and state in the address bar.

Bellingham, for instance, is just a bit larger than PG. Its crime rate is below the national average. PG is not below the national average. Far from it.

I understand what you are talking about. To make that comparison one has to go to the actual crimes per capita for both Canadian and US cities which takes time and even then it may not be a 100% fit.

city-data.com/crime/crime-Bellingham-Washington.html

crime rate in Bellingham … murders/100,000 (a standard method of reporting which we do not seem to use)

for 12 year period up to and including 2012 there were
one year with 3 murders/100,000
6 years with 2
3 years with 1
2 years with 0
18 over 12 years = average of 1.5/year.

From the point of view of murders, we might be about the same or worse.

Look up Los Angeles. That is the type of city we all hear about.

251/100,000 in 2013. The lowest is has been over 12 year period. It has dropped every year since 2002 when it was 654/100,000 ….

Small cities in the USA are actually relatively safe, especially compared to PG.