Prince George has dropped out of the top ten "most dangerous places" in Canada, but the city's crime rate has actually increased slightly according to a recent tally by Maclean's Magazine.
The Macleans magazine ranking, which compared the 2016 crime severity index ranking of towns and cities across Canada, placed Prince George in the 11th spot overall. North Battleford, Sask., with a population of 13,567, gained the top spot. Williams Lake, the City of Langley and Vernon were the only B.C. cities to make the top ten.
Prince George's crime severity score on the index actually rose slightly from 149.9 in 2015 to 154 in 2016, despite dropping from its ranking of third "most dangerous" city to 11th during the same period.
The magazine altered the methodology for this year's rankings, including towns with populations as low as 10,000 for the first time. In the past, the rankings had included only the 100 biggest cities in Canada. Last year's rankings did not include Williams Lake and Vernon, which gained the fourth and tenth spots, respectively.
According to Mayor Lyn Hall, the move of Prince George outside of the top ten has reflected an increased focus on police foot patrols in key areas of the downtown.
"It really assisted the RCMP in dealing with some of the crime elements," said Hall in a phone interview.
"More presence throughout the community has had a positive impact."
The crime severity index, upon which the Maclean's ranking is based, assigns a statistical weight to criminal offenses based on their severity. More serious crimes, such as homicides or violent offences are assigned higher weights than other offenses, such as small theft.
Prince George has ranked highly in most of the Maclean's rankings, and earned the dubious spot as the "most dangerous city in Canada" between 2010 and 2012.
This year's ranking included 239 communities across Canada, instead of just 100. Mayor Hall believes that this was an improvement in the Maclean's ranking, which more accurately reflected a comparison of mid-sized towns and cities.
"When you're going take a look at ranking municipalities against other municipalities, you need to be absolutely certain that you're comparing apples to apples," Hall said.
The city recorded four homicides and two firearms offenses in 2016, along with 607 assaults, 655 break and enters, 78 robberies and 55 sexual assaults. Notably, there were 76 Youth Criminal Justice Act offenses.
