The severity of crime in Greater Victoria is dropping at a rate higher than almost every other metropolitan area in the country, according to numbers released today by Statistics Canada.
Greater Victoria’s crime severity index for 2016 sat at 63.8, which represents a 12-per-cent drop from 2015. That was second-highest among Canada’s major metropolitan areas, behind only Trois-Rivieres, Que. By comparison, Greater Victoria’s crime rate of 5,689 per 100,000 people in 2016 showed a six-per-cent decrease from the 2015 mark, tying it for the fourth-highest crime rate reduction on the list.
The Crime Severity Index (CSI) is based on Criminal Code incidents – including traffic offences – as well as other federal statute violations. It is a weighted figure which assigns higher values to crimes based on the incarceration rate for the violation and the average length of prison sentences handed those convicted. For interpretation purposes, the base CSI was set at 100 for 2006 for Canada.
The crime rate is based upon Criminal Code incidents, excluding traffic offences.
The country’s crime severity index (71.0) went up 1.2 per cent from 2015, marking the second straight yearly increase. The total is still 29 per cent lower than when the base index was set in 2006, however. The biggest contributor, according to the report, is an increase in the rate of fraud.
