Swift Current ranked 48th on Maclean's Most Dangerous Places in Canada

Last week Maclean's magazine released a list of the Most Dangerous Places to Live in Canada.

According to the list, Swift Current ranked 48th out of 229 communities. Maclean's ranked the communities according to the crime severity index [CSI] which measures all police-reported crime and takes the number of crimes and seriousness of the crimes and then adjusts them to a population 100,000.

Swift Current had a CSI of 98 which is above the national average of 70. Swift Current also had a Violent Crime Severity Index of 89, which placed them 53rd in the category. The national average is 75.

Gary Hodges, Staff Sargent for the Swift Current RCMP, said that things can skew the statistics. 

"When it comes to the crime severity index it's important to remember a couple of things," he said. "Serious crime at a higher end of the spectrum can skew the numbers. Two aggravated assaults in a city like Saskatoon that has a population of 240,00 would hardly register on the index, but two assaults in Swift Current would take us way up on the list."

North Battleford was the Most Dangerous place with a CSI of 353. Thompson, Man. followed in second with a CSI of 284, and Prince Albert finished third with a CSI of 244.

Hodges said people have to be careful about they interpret the stats.

"It's based on a per capita, so if you go into detail with the statistics Maclean's quotes in the article, that there were two firearm complaints within the city last year," he said. "When you adjust that, to make Swift Current have 100,000 people, that puts the Crime Severity Index over 12. The national average is 6. So we're lumped in with Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, and Edmonton. The list is telling me that our average is double what theirs is, and we had two complaints here in an entire year. One has to be careful about how they look at the statistics."

Hodges added that he doesn't focus much on the rankings.

"I don't focus on much on the ranking and list because it's based on per capita. Those stats are going to be skewed by something. One has to very careful when drilling down into statistics, while they do have their place, one has to put it in its proper place."

Other Saskatchewan communities that made a list and their Crime Severity Index: