By Sarah Rae

Many factors contribute to crime severity index: N.B. RCMP

Jul 21, 2016 | 2:00 PM

An increased crime severity index rating may not just mean there’s more criminal activity in the city, according to the local RCMP detachment commander.

Insp. John Sutherland said there isn’t just one cause contributing to the Crime Severity Index (CSI) rating. He said the work RCMP and the city of North Battleford are doing to address social and economic issues is a long and complicated process, which will provide long term solutions.

One possible factor in the CSI increase could actually be better police work, Sutherland said.

“Anytime you start focusing on offenders and you start to engage and address issues of criminality, if you increase the number of contacts you have with people or charges that occur, then you’re going to see a rise in your CSI,” he said. “Because part of the indexing and the number is calculated on court sentencing and on contacts and files generated by the police.”

North Battleford’s CSI increased by 16 per cent from 2014 to 2015 after decreasing for several years, according to Statistics Canada data.

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The CSI increased across the country in 2015, and Sutherland said as economic and social issues change, people may turn to criminality to support themselves. He added when jobs taper off in a bad economy, some people turn to crime to help fund addictions and other social issues.

Statistics Canada breaks down North Battleford by urban and rural areas. While urban North Battleford increased overall and in both non-violent and violent crime, rural North Battleford decreased slightly and actually decreased in violent crime by 23 per cent.

Sutherland said that decrease could be directly related to the fact the RCMP were able to provide 24-hour policing to rural communities for the first time in 2015.

“Also within the rural population and the city we work hard; we’re working hard to provide different things such as drug and organized crime awareness, traffic safety, public awareness campaigns and those probably all have a contributing factor as well,” he said.

Sarah Rae is battlefordsNOW’s court and crime reporter. She can be reached at Sarah.Rae@jpbg.ca or tweet her @sarahjeanrae.

by Sarah Rae

Many factors contribute to crime severity index: N.B. RCMP

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