Red Deer is among the top 12 most dangerous cities in Canada.
According to data released by weekly national news magazine Maclean’s on Thursday, Red Deer has jumped to 11th spot from 36th position last year among Canada’s largest cities or towns. In 2008, it was ranked as the 23rd most dangerous city.
Civic leaders are surprised by the latest figures that shows Red Deer is more dangerous than Edmonton, which ranked 13th, and Calgary, which came in at 55th. Prince George, B.C., ranked 1st.
“We have issues in our community, but the sky is not falling,” said Red Deer City RCMP Supt. Brian Simpson on Friday. “Red Deer is a nice city and overall, I feel it’s a safe city.”
Red Deer was also ranked 15th highest for auto theft, 27th for homicide, 30th for sexual assault, 31st for break-ins, and 32nd for robberies. Standings for aggravated assault were unavailable online on Friday.
Simpson said the vast majority of serious crimes involve individuals who know each other. They are not random acts.
“And we see property offences and other things related to the drug subculture,” said Simpson. “Our population is around 90,000, but the reality is we see a lot more people coming through on a regular basis because of our geographical location.”
Simpson also wonders if Red Deer’s figures are higher in part because people are reporting crime. A higher number of domestic violence cases are reported in Red Deer compared with similar-sized cities.
“We have an effective program in dealing with criminal domestic violence and we get that anecdotally from people,” Simpson said. “They know there are supports in place so they feel comfortably in reporting.”
Maclean’s third annual crime rankings are based on crimes committed in 2009.
The magazine obtained annual crime data from Statistics Canada for municipal police services serving the nation’s 100 largest populations, each encompassing a city or town of at least 10,000 people.
Using 2009 rates per 100,000 people for six crimes — homicide, sexual assault, aggravated assault, vehicle theft, robbery plus breaking and entering — in each area, Maclean’s calculated the percentage difference from the national rate.
The overall crime score ranking for the 100 communities was created in consultation with StatsCan, using its Crime Severity Index (CSI) score and calculating the percentage difference from the national CSI score.
The crime severity index was developed last year.
Mayor Morris Flewwelling said “he’s at a bit of a loss” as to why Red Deer is ranked so high among Canada’s most dangerous cities.
“It makes us sound like we could never go out on the street,” Flewwelling said.
“And yet, we have a city where our crime rate has been dropping substantially and where most citizens feel very comfortable and love living here.”
Flewwelling added he doesn’t believe more needs to be done with crime than what is being done already.
The recently released community Vital Signs report revealed that between 2003 and 2008, the violent crime rate declined 31 per cent, while property crime decreased 62 per cent.
But property crime and violent crime also jumped significantly in 2009 compared with 2008.
Vital Signs also showed Red Deer having 1.23 officers per 1,000 residents in 2009, 38.5 per cent lower than the national average of 2.00.
Chris Stephan, a city lawyer and businessman running for councillor, said he’s concerned Red Deer isn’t keeping up with police resources, particularly when crime and safety have been the top public concern for the last three years.
“In 2010, we didn’t add any officers because it wasn’t part of our budget — even though for the two years previous we knew it was the number one concern,” said Stephan.
“It’s also about cracking down on drugs, better lighting in areas of high crime, installing surveillance cameras. We need additional foot patrol.”
Council elected not to approve more officers to help toe the line on spending.
Simpson said “more officers are part of the solution” but that’s not the whole story.
“You have to look at the root causes and go from there,” he added.
Councillor incumbent Tara Veer said focus must be spent on illegal drug activity. Plus, she’d like to see a greater cohesiveness of the various city-employed safety and security positions.
“The commissionaires don’t have enforcement powers — I think you could elevate them to peace office positions with little financial impact and you would get greater enforcement activity.”
ltester@www.reddeeradvocate.com