Kamloops, B.C., had Canada’s highest crime rate in 2023 for communities with at least 100,000 people, though one expert says residents should “absolutely not” be alarmed.
Police reported 13,116 criminal incidents per 100,000 people in the fast-growing city located in the province’s southern Interior. According to data released by Statistics Canada last week, the figure is a two per cent decrease from the 2022 rate, but it still led the country.
Kamloops also topped Canada’s crime severity index (CSI) at 165.3 last year, a 10 per cent increase from 2022. Statistics Canada says the weighted number considers not only the volume of reported crimes but also their severity. The agency cautions that the data is not meant to be “used in isolation or as a universal indicator of an area’s overall safety.”
B.C.’s overall CSI for last year was 104.1. The provincial crime rate was 7,404 per 100,000 people.
Kamloops Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson said the figures for his city are not surprising, but he’s concerned that they are going to “scare people off.”
“We can’t keep pretending it’s not happening, and we’ve got to deal with it,” he said in an interview with CBC’s Daybreak Kamloops, though adding that local police are “doing a great job.”
Bryan Kinney, an associate professor at SFU’s school of criminology, told CBC’s Daybreak Kamloops that it shouldn’t be a cause for alarm.
According to him, the western provinces tend to have higher crime rates relative to other population centres.
‘Growing pains’
Kinney said that as communities — like Kamloops — approach the 100,000 population mark, they start to see more “big city” activities, such as more business investments, as well as more crimes.
“You may have big city issues, but tucked into a relatively small population,” he said. “And so when you have a small population, small changes … will show an alarming jump in percentage.”
Kamloops RCMP Superintendent Jeff Pelley made a similar argument, noting that Kamloops is one of the smallest cities included in the index at this population level.
“That’s definitely a growing pain, but it’s not a true reflection of our city being unsafe,” he said.
Both Kinney and Pelley said that Kamloops’ CSI is not driven by violent crimes.
Pelley said that police strategies currently focus on community engagement, increased visibility, rapid responses to incidents and operations targeting specific issues related to violent crimes, including monitoring high-risk individuals.
He said that his department is also getting more officers for the third straight year.
“Despite the challenges highlighted by the crime severity index, Kamloops remains a very safe city,” he said. “We’re going to continue to focus on those crime rates and drive them down and make it even more safe.”
In addition, Kinney noted that Chilliwack — which also has around 100,000 people — is seeing similar challenges.
According to Statistics Canada, the city in the Fraser Valley had the second-highest CSI in the country, at 156.2. The agency also says the community had the country’s third-highest crime rate, at 11,615 police-reported criminal incidents per 100,000 people, a 17 per cent increase from 2022.
Meanwhile, Kinney said Kelowna’s growing pains seem to have diminished, with its population far in excess of the 100,000 mark. The city was previously one of Canada’s leaders for reported crime rates.
“[Kamloops is] doing pretty good actually for growing,” he said. “You’ve got the problem where you’re now more of an interest to all kinds of things … so you might be borrowing some of Kelowna’s previous numbers.”