LPS Chief Shahin Mehdizadeh

By Connor Gunn

LPS Chief responds to Lethbridge having Canada’s highest Crime Severity Index

Jul 28, 2021 | 12:46 PM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – After Statistics Canada released new data on police-reported crime in 2020 and Lethbridge having the country’s highest Crime Severity Index (CSI), Lethbridge’s Police Chief says he’s hopeful for the future.

Chief Shahin Mehdizadeh says as these numbers may look concerning, they surely don’t tell the full story.

The city’s score, based on the number and seriousness of crimes in 2020, is 138.7, which is down slightly from the year before.

Read more: Lethbridge still has Canada’s highest Crime Severity Index, but crime down in 2020

Mehdizadeh says citizens need to be more careful in specific situations involving crime.

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“As long as you’re an easy target for criminals to commit crimes, we’re going to see these numbers period. I can have a thousand more police officers in the city but if people still leave their keys in their vehicles, leave their doors open etcetera, the crime is going to happen.”

The CSI takes into consideration the number of crimes that are reported by law enforcement agencies and gives more serious incidents a greater weight, resulting in an index score.

Stats Canada has released the CSI rankings for 35 census metropolitan areas with the national CSI average being 73.4.

The second-highest-ranked community is Kelowna, B.C. at 111.9.

Mehdizadeh also highlighted that an overall drop in crime did happen throughout the city which is down by “nearly 10 per cent.”

He also said since these stats are from 2020, the numbers for 2021 have not been fully prepared yet but, he is seeing a large “decrease in crime” over this current year.

Previously, the police budget was cut by $1 million and when addressing service levels, Mehdizadeh says there will be no change to them going forward.

“We are going to maintain the service delivery that we had before, past 2022 it’s a different story.”

Not knowing what the future will look like for the budget is not concerning says Mehdizadeh, but definitely, something to keep an eye on.

More information regarding the numbers and the overall CSI report can be found below.

National ranking of CSI stats

Sort through local police-reported crime stats