Barrie’s crime severity index one of the lowest in Canada

Barrie’s Crime Severity Index (CSI) ranked among the lowest of the country’s 35 largest cities, according to an annual analysis conducted through Statistics Canada.

The Barrie Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) had the fifth-lowest CSI after the Quebec communities of Quebec City, Sherbrooke, Saguenay, and Trois-Rivieres in the ranked measurement of crime volume coming to the attention of police. Toronto and Peterborough ranked sixth and seventh lowest, respectively.

Lethbridge, Alta., Winnipeg, Regina, Sask., and Kelowna, B.C., had the highest CSIs in 2019.

Although it was down from a decade ago, the Barrie area’s index increased nine per cent over 2018. And an increase in fraud and homicide — three were recorded in the Barrie CMA in 2019– was partially offset by a decrease in break-and-enters.

Canada-wide, crime — including violent crime — increased somewhat last year, compared to 2018, although it was lower than it was a decade earlier, according to the information released by the Canadian Centre for Justice and Community Safety Statistics.

Nationally, police-reported crime increased five per cent in 2019 from the previous year, but was nine per cent lower than a decade earlier in 2009. Overall, the crime severity index has increased for the fifth consecutive year.

Most (25) of the cities saw an increase in fraud, for a total average increase of eight per cent. The ability to report fraud online, combined with high-profile fraud schemes, are considered factors in the increase.

Fraud was up in Greater Sudbury by 37 per cent as well as in Guelph and Barrie by 27 per cent, all three making the top five list along with Trois-Rivieres and Winnipeg.

Barrie police communications co-ordinator Peter Leon calls fraud an opportunistic crime in which perpetrators use phone, email and testing along with traditional approaches.

“Unfortunately, our seniors seem to be the group that are targeted the most,” Leon said. “Many people who get caught up in these scams are defrauded of tens of thousands of dollars.”

The Barrie Census Metropolitan Area tracks largely north-south, taking in Innisfil, Barrie as well as Springwater Township and the three accompanying police forces: South Simcoe Police Service, Barrie Police Service and Ontario Provincial Police.

Overall, Leon said the area’s police forces work well together in the combined effort to fight crime.

Criminologist Melanie Marchand points out the index measures the volume of crime across Canada, weighted on crime severity, allowing trends to be measured and compared.

And when the factors are all taken into account equally across the board, the Barrie area comes out with a lower crime score.

“It all comes down to how crimes are reported and recorded, and how sentences are handed down,” said Marchand, Georgian College’s police studies degree program co-ordinator.

Reports of child pornography saw a 46 per cent jump across the country and other areas that saw increases were uttering threats, mischief and sexual assault.

The number of homicides dropped in Ontario in 2019, after seeing a large increase in 2018.

Although the homicide rate among Indigenous people was six and a half times higher than for non-Indigenous people, according to the report. In addition, those identified as belonging to a visible minority group account for almost one-third of the country’s homicide victims.

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