Crime Rate by Municipality

Topic Box from the 2006 Sixth Annual Benchmark Report

Smithers saw the largest increase in its crime rate with 63.1% increase from 185 incidents in 1996 per 1,000 population to 301 in 2005. The next three largest 1996-2005 increases were in Summerland (31.5%), Prince Rupert (29.8%) and Squamish (27.2%) and were all in a cluster at roughly half the increase in Smithers. Kamloops, at 23.1%, also had a relatively large increase. Twenty-two of the sixty-four municipalities with full data had higher crime rates in 2005 than in 1996.

In contrast, Sidney saw its crime rate drop by 49.0% from 106 incidents per 1,000 population in 1996 to 54 in 2005. Large decreases were also seen in Vancouver (40.5%), Kitimat (39.2%), North Saanich (31.7%) and Qualicum Beach (30.8%). Forty-two of the sixty-four municipalities with full data had lower crime rates in 2005 than in 1996.

Although these data can be used to rank municipalities based on their overall crime rate, they are intended to show how rates change over time within a given municipality rather than how the rate in one municipality compares to the rate in another. Comparisons between municipalities are difficult to interpret because the resident population of the municipality may not reflect the number of people who frequent it. The examples given by the Police Services Division are a municipality that is a core city and serves as the business and entertainment district for people from surrounding municipalities and tourist destinations which have large part-time populations. While the crimes do indeed occur within the boundaries of the relevant municipality, assigning those crimes to an appropriate population is difficult.