Hat is 32nd most dangerous municipality

By Jeremy Appel on November 6, 2018.

NEWS GRAPHIC ALISION PELTIER This graphic show five areas in which Medicine Hat's crime rate is above the national average. Maclean's magazine this week ranked Medicine Hat as the 32nd most dangerous municipality in Canada.

jappel@medicinehatnews.com @MHNJeremyAppel

Medicine Hat is the 32nd most dangerous municipality in Canada, according to a new report from Maclean’s.

The list is based on increases in the Crime Severity Index, which weighs crimes on severity based on the proportion of people convicted of the crime who are incarcerated and the average length of their sentence, over the past five years.

The data is based on the most recent year available — 2017 — and there are 237 municipalities ranked.

Seven of the top 10 municipalities in the report are located in Alberta — Wetaskiwin is No. 1, Red Deer is No. 2, Lethbridge is No. 3, Cold Lake is No. 6, Whitecourt is No. 8, Spruce Grove is No. 9 and Sylvan Lake comes in at No. 10.

Medicine Hat’s CSI is 92, an increase of 17.53 points since 2012. By contrast, the national average CSI is 70.96.

However, the Violent Crime Severity Index is at 72, a bit less than the Canadian average of 76.25.

Each individual category is based on an average out of 100,000 people, however the report only says whether rates have increased or decreased, not the factor by which they did.

Medicine Hat Police Service Insp. Tim McGough says the statistics provide an overview that’s “historical in nature,” but largely consistent with what he’s seen in the city.

“Generally, we have seen more crimes,” McGough said, adding that this is true in many Alberta municipalities, as the rankings indicate.

He maintains Medicine Hat is relatively safe and that the increase in rankings is a result of Hatters being more willing to report crimes, based on MHPS’s “no call too small policy,” which leads them to investigate crimes he says go unreported elsewhere.

McGough attributes an increase in property crime to more methamphetamine usage in the city.

With 52 charges laid for trafficking other controlled substances — namely meth — the rate increased to 80.56, more than triple the national number of 23.41.

By comparison, there were just 15 cocaine trafficking charges laid, which resulted in a decrease of the rate to 23.24 — still above the Canadian average of 19.73.

“The availability of methamphetamine is more prevalent than that of cocaine,” explained McGough. “It’s cheaper than cocaine … We know its addictive properties … makes people a little bit more desperate when they get addicted and they might resort to property crimes.”

This trend has been going on for the past five or six years, he added.

Robberies have decreased to 22 incidents, with a rate of 34.08 — significantly less than the federal average of 60.09.

The breaking-and-entering rate, with 351 incidents, remained constant at 543.8 — still greater than the 438.51 Canadian average.

But there were 307 incidents of fraud, with a rate of 476.3, compared with the 299.05 national average.

“You see all those CRA scams. We’re seeing a lot more of those types of files,” said McGough. “We do document all of those. People are more willing around here to report those as they might be elsewhere.”

There were 62 sexual assaults in Medicine Hat in 2017 — an increase from previous years — which results in an average of 96.06, well above the national average of 56.56.

McGough says Hatters are more diligent reporting sexual assault, due to a “trauma-informed approach” for dealing with survivors, combined with the impact of the international #MeToo movement.

The most drastic disparity between the local and national average is youth crime.

At 50 incidents, the rate is 77.46, nearly five times the Canadian average of 16.74.

“I was surprised to see that myself,” said McGough. “It’s not something that’s popped up on our radar.”