BC saw an increase in crime incidents last year, and two cities are leading the country overall.
Statistics Canada has recently updated its crime severity index (CSI), which shows that two BC cities have the worst CSI overall. One of those cities, Chilliwack, was tied with Drummondville for the most significant jump in crime rate compared to 2022.
Statistics Canada calculates the CSI by multiplying the number of police-reported incidents for each offence by the weight of that offence.
“All weighted offences are then added together and divided by the corresponding population total,” Statistics Canada says.
Kamloops and Chilliwack lead Canada for the worst CSI overall, with 165.3 and 156.2, respectively. Chilliwack saw a 17% increase in crime compared to 2022, and while Kamloops is down by -2%, it’s still the highest in Canada. The Abbotsford-Mission region also saw a substantial overall jump in crime rate (15%).
Breaking down overall crime in BC
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Between 2022 and 2023, the overall CSI in BC increased from 100.37 to 104.11, while the violent CSI decreased from 101.31 to 96.89.
In 2022, Statistics Canada recorded 435,267 actual police-reported incidents. BC saw that jump to 440,758 last year. Even though incidents increased, the rate per 100,000 population decreased from 8,126.29 to 7,986.17.
BC charged fewer people last year (48,200) than in 2022 (49,726). While there were more youth charges, there were fewer adult charges in 2023 compared to 2022.
Despite the overall violent CSI decreasing, BC did see an increase in assaults. BC saw more incidents of aggravated (level 3) assault in 2023 (384) compared to 2022 (362). It also saw an increase in incidents of assault level 2, which is an assault by “weapon or bodily harm.”
In terms of homicides, BC saw a decrease in 2023 (123) compared to 2022 (155).
Crime in Chilliwack and Kamloops
Even though Kamloops has the second-worst CSI in all of Canada, it saw an improvement compared to 2022.
In 2022, there were 17,180 total police-reported crimes in Kamloops. In 2023, that number dropped to 16,835. There were also fewer charges in 2023 compared to 2022. Still, Kamloops had the highest overall crime rate in 2023, according to Statistics Canada.
It was a wildly different story in Chilliwack.
Chilliwack saw incidents increase by over 2,000 in 2023 (15,456) compared to 2022 (13,223).
Crime in Vancouver
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Vancouver, which refers to Metro Vancouver, including cities like Surrey and Burnaby, saw an increase in actual crime incidents, with 192,401 in 2023 compared to 188,270 in 2022. Rates of persons charged per 100,000 decreased to 687.64 last year compared to 732.77 in 2022.
Vancouver saw a decrease in homicides, with 48 in 2023 compared to 73 in 2022. However, it did see an increase in assaults (levels 1, 2 and 3).
Motor vehicle theft dropped significantly in 2023 (3,955) compared to 2022 (4,317). Overall, theft decreased to 1,788 from 2,061 in 2022.
The city with the lowest CSI is Barrie (48.1).