â–º Listen Live
HomeNewsGrande Prairie sees major drop in crime index

Grande Prairie sees major drop in crime index

The crime and violent crime severity indexes for the Grande Prairie region dropped dramatically from 2015 to 2016. Statistics Canada has released its annual report on police-reported crime, and it shows the violent crime severity index for the rural GP area spiked in 2015 at 173.28, falling nearly 48 per cent to 90.55 the next year.

In that same time frame, the crime index for the rural area went down 38.5 per cent from 169.45 to 104.21. Other than 2015, that’s still the highest it’s been since 2005, when it was 135.7.

In the municipal area, the crime severity index was down nearly 30 per cent from 213.57 to 150.41, which is around where it was in 2012 and 2013. The violent crime index dropped more than 27 per cent to 139.34 from 191.98, which is lower than it was in 2014.

Accordingly, the number of crimes reported in the region have also dropped. There were 12,928 incidents reported in the city in 2015, which fell to 9,261 in 2016. When looking at the rate per 100,000 population, that works out to 14,589.54, which is a nearly 30 per cent drop.

- Advertisement -

In the rural area, 1,686 incidents were reported last year, down from 2,717. That gives the area a rate of 7,480.37 for every 100,000 residents, which is down nearly a third.

Alberta overall saw its crime severity index drop by one per cent, and notably, its homicide rate fell by 17 per cent. Greater Edmonton had the highest Canada’s second-highest homicide rate last year. One of the biggest findings of this year’s Stats Can survey is that the number of marijuana-related offences reported to police declined for the fifth straight year.

The crime statistics available for other areas in the Peace Country are below:

- Advertisment -
- Advertisment -
- Advertisement -

Continue Reading