For the second year in a row, Prince George is No. 1 in Canada for serious crimes according to calculations made by Maclean's Magazine.
In the four years the national news magazine has done the rankings, Prince George has always been in the Top 5.
Today's edition of Maclean's gives the latest details.
Police and city officials do not dispute Maclean's Magazine statistics, especially since they are taken primarily from Statistics Canada's highly regarded Crime Severity Index. This system gives each crime a value based on the sentences handed down for those convicted. Things like murder are at the top end, while things like shoplifting are at the bottom. Macleans focuses on six of the most serious ones - homicide, sexual assault, aggravated assault, robbery, break-and-enter and auto theft - and compares the 100 biggest cities in Canada.
What is disputed, said Prince George's top cop, is the headline used to describe the statistical results: "Canada's Most Dangerous City." According to Supt. Eric Stubbs, that is only true if you are an active participant in the criminal world yourself.
"I wouldn't have moved my family to Prince George if I believed this was Canada's most dangerous city," he said, having accepted this posting about six months ago. He pointed out that of the seven homicides last year - and the Maclean's article is based on last year's data - most were attributed to suspected serial killer Cody Legebokoff or incidents arising from organized crime. Legebokoff is now in custody and gangs are under intense police pressure, he said, and in 2011 there hasn't been a single murder. Of the 15 most prolific offenders doing property crime in the city, six are now living under court-imposed conditions and nine were in jail.
"This number of zero homicides is not a fluke," he said. "I firmly believe [police pressure] has prevented homicides in this city."
Mayor Shari Green agreed that the work done in recent years to combat the serious criminal elements of Prince George had clearly been effective.
"We have seen some dramatic reductions, but it is a work in progress," she said. "If you are a participant in [criminal or high-risk] activities there is a high likelihood you will be the victim of a crime but also a high likelihood now that you will be arrested."
She and Stubbs said, and Maclean's Magazine contacts agreed, that next year's ranking would almost certainly paint a wildly different portrait.
TURNING THE PAGE ON MACLEAN'S
Other statistics apply to Prince George crime than the ones tabulated by Maclean's Magazine. According to the standard measure for the nation's crimes - the Crime Severity Index of CSI - Prince George scores a total of 193 for violent crimes and 103 for non-violent crimes. Maclean's Magazine only compares the nation's 100 biggest cities, but when you include all B.C. communities Prince George drops to 15th (violent) and 16th (non-violent) in the province, not tops in the nation.
Serious assault cases in Prince George have gone down from 419 in 2007 to 343 in 2010 (it was as low as 300 in 2009).
Break-and-Enter cases have dropped from 1,100 in 2006 and almost 1,200 in 2007 to 801 in 2010.
Robbery cases in 2006 totaled 178 but for the past three years in a row have hovered at 103 or fewer.
Drug charges were one of the measured categories in Maclean's Magazine, but local police showed that such cases totaled 409 in 2006, swelled to 588 in 2010 and are on pace to shrink modestly to 538 this year.
PROJECTIONS FOR 2011
Homicides - zero
Sexual Assault - 3
Serious Assault - 244
Robbery - 70
Break-and-Enter - 698
