Crime in Chilliwack is going down, according to a metric kept by Statistics Canada, but it’s still high compared to many other jurisdictions.
The Crime Severity Index (CSI) released Aug. 2 measures police-reported crime in jurisdictions across the country.
It encompasses all Criminal Code violations, including traffic and drug infractions, with each type of crime assigned a ‘weight,’ depending on its severity. A low CSI number generally indicates that a community is relatively safe.
After crunching the numbers, the data shows municipal Chilliwack’s CSI dropping for a second straight year.
The 2021 score is 132.59, a 4.86 per cent drop from 2020 when it was 139.37 and a 14.10 per cent drop from 2019 when it was 153.56.
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But overall, Chilliwack’s CSI is still substantially higher than the province-wide rate of 92.86.
By comparison, Delta’s CSI is 57.62, Abbotsford’s is 72.59, New Westminster’s is 88.04 and Surrey’s is 85.98.
Langley City had the highest CSI score in the Greater Vancouver/Lower Mainland region with 199.44, followed by Hope (191.02), Chilliwack (132.59), and Richmond (106.86).
The Statistics Canada project also breaks down data by violent versus non-violent crime. Chilliwack’s Violent CSI in 2021 is 144.08, down 4.27 per cent from 2020, when it was 150.51.
But 144.08 is much higher than the province-wide Violent CSI rate of 95.16 for 2021.
Chilliwack’s Non-Violent CSI for 2021 is 128.15, down 5.10 per cent from 2020 when it was 135.04, and down 18.94 per cent from 2019 when it was 156.74.
The province-wide Non-Violent CSI for 2021 is 91.82.
Statistics Canada also calculates a ‘weighted clearance rate’ for police, again assigning higher value to a cleared (solved) homicide or break-and-enter versus minor theft, mischief or disturbing the peace. By this metric, Chilliwack RCMP has a weighted clearance rate of 21.38 in 2021, up ever-so-slightly from 21.28 in 2020.
That’s within range of the province-wide rate for 2021, which was 24.59.
With files from James Smith
@ProgressSports
eric.welsh@theprogress.com
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