Local crime rates rise
Posted Jul 20, 2010 12:02:36 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Statistics Canada says crime rates in Waterloo Region and Guelph have gone up slightly, but are still among the lowest in the country.
A new report out today measures the seriousness of crime based on sentences handed down by the courts.
The severity index and the violent crime severity index were both up seven percent for the Kitchener census metropolitan area in 2009.
For the Guelph CMA, severity was up three percent, but violent crime was up a whopping twenty-one percent.
But senior analyst Mia Dauvergne tells 570 News despite those increases, the Kitchener CMA has one of the lowest severity indexes in the country, and Guelph has the lowest.
Dauvergne adds that both Kitchener and Guelph CMA’s were below the national average for robbery, break and enter, vehicle theft, and homicide numbers.
She adds that fluctuations in stats happen from year to year, and policing policies, like targeted initiatives, can be factors.
The national crime rate volume fell three per cent last year and was seventeen percent lower than a decade ago.
The national crime severity index fell four percent last year and was down 22 percent from 1999.
