Statistics Canada released their Crime Severity Index for 2011 late last month, and the data puts Prince Rupert in the top 10 worst communities across country.
The Crime Severity Index (CSI) takes the crimes, assigns them a weight based on sentences handed down by the courts and dividing that number by the population. The numbers look at communities with a population over 10,000 people across Canada.
For 2011 Prince Rupert had the 8th highest overall CSI in the country and the second highest in the province behind only Williams Lake, which ranked sixth in Canada, and Prince Rupert was ranked just ahead of Langley.
The stats go further to look at the severity index for violent crimes and for non-violent crimes. When it comes to violent crimes, Prince Rupert is ranked even worse with the fifth highest in the country and second in the province again to Williams Lake, which was ranked fourth. Both nationally and provincially, Prince Rupert is ranked just below Terrace in terms of violent crime with our neighbours to the east ranking 6th.
When it comes to non-violent crimes, Prince Rupert is ranked 12th in the country, but ranked third in the province behind both Williams Lake and Langley City.
This is the second year in a row Prince Rupert ranked 8th in the Crime Severity index.
When it comes to overall crime severity ranking and non-violent crime severity, North Battleford Saskatchewan was ranked the highest in the country. Thompson, Manitoba, was ranked the worst when it came to violent crime and second overall in the other two categories.
For more on the rankings, click here