RCMP superintendent Holly Glassford wants to put Red Deer's status as a high-crime city into perspective.
According to the latest Statistics Canada report, Red Deer had the third-highest Crime Severity Index in 2023, after Kamloops and Chilliwack. But there are many ways to read statistics, says Glassford, head of the Red Deer RCMP.
She prefers to focus on Red Deer coming in second in the country for improvement in the Crime Severity Index as measured in the latest Stats-Canada report. Only London, Ont. showed a bigger improvement.
From 2022 to 2023, Red Deer experienced an 11 per cent drop in severe crime and eight per cent decline in the overall crime rate. Glassford said these numbers correspond with what local police data is showing.
Second-quarter (April to June) statistics from Red Deer RCMP show property crime has fallen by 14.5 per cent in the city from last year and crimes against persons have decreased by eight percent from the same period last year.
Glassford acknowledged there was an overall rise in persons crimes by the end of 2023, so the local RCMP has been putting additional enforcement focus on this area through the downtown police patrol, intelligence-led policing and a new drone program.
"We remain committed to ensuring public safety," she said, adding there is still work to do in reducing local crime.
Red Deer's third-place standing among all Canadian municipalities on police-reported CSI crimes has raised concern, and Glassford believes it's "valuable to know these kinds of year-over-year numbers," but she believes tracking longer-term trends offer a bigger picture view. And she noted Red Deer's CSI has been falling since 2017.
"I see the trends are decreasing. When I look at that chart... that is what stands out to me."
As to why Red Deer's year-over-year standing still puts the city third on the unenviable highest CSI list, Glassford believes our location on one of Canada's busiest highways probably has a bearing, as does the city's relatively small population, since having a few more severe crimes can stand out more, on a per-capita basis.
Statistics-Canada has highlighted that the CSI is not intended to be used in isolation, "or as a universal indicator of an area's overall safety." Rather, people should consider the broader context of a region, taking into consideration other information on community safety, population, demographics, the local labour market, employment rate, income and housing etc.
Mayor Ken Johnston said he was disturbed — and surprised — when he saw the city's high standing on the CSI list. "Certainly I am always concerned about the safety of our city," said Johnston, who's been hearing reports of crime in the city trending downwards.
Like Glassford, he believes in viewing the longer-term data, noting that Red Deer's CSI has been declining since 2017.
While Johnston occasionally hears public safety concerns expressed about the downtown, where extra police patrols are deployed, the mayor said he seldom hears citizen concerns about neighbourhood safety. "Certainly I can tell you I really believe we have a safe city."
