Crime Severity Index stats show numbers dropping
By Lethbridge Herald on July 23, 2025.
Joe Manio
Lethbridge Herald
Local journalism Initiative Reporter
In good news for the City of Lethbridge, the overall Crime Severity Index (CSI) number for the 2024 reporting period went down 18.5 per cent from the year before, the largest single drop since 2000.Â
While Lethbridge has historically had a high CSI in recent years, it is no longer ranked as the highest in Canada, according to Statistics Canada data.
“The Lethbridge Census metropolitan area recorded nearly 19 per cent drop in overall CSI, the third largest decrease in Canada, continuing a five-year downward trend that reflects strong momentum in reducing crime across our city,” said Lethbridge Deputy Chief Gerald Grobmeier, Tuesday at city hall.Â
“The violent crime CSI decreased by almost eight per cent and non-violent crime, which is typically property crime, decreased by 23 per cent, with our year-end data showing notable reductions in break-and-enters, mischief, theft of motor vehicles, and vehicle theft,” said.Grobmeier.
Lethbridge has seen an increase in clearance rates across all CSI categories, meaning more crimes are being solved and offenders are being held accountable. In 2024, crime decreased in all four zones of the city, downtown, south, north, and west.Â
And according to a latest community survey, 70 per cent of residents report feeling safe in Lethbridge.
“I wish I could say that all of a sudden now there’s no crime because we’re dropping down and Lethbridge is free of crime,” said Grobmeir. “That’s not the case. It’s a safer community, and that’s what those stats are showing. And so we just want to make sure that we continue trending in the right direction, doing the things that we need to do to make sure that we have a safer community,” he said.
In 2024 the LPS hired 26 new police officers and four community police peace officers. So far this year, LPS added 12 police officers and three new CPOs, with plans to hire additional officers for an upcoming class this fall. These hires have enabled LPS to reinvest in its specialty units, including adding four officers to the downtown patrol unit, and dedicating more resources to proactive policing initiatives.
While the CSI downward trend is good news in terms of crime reduction efforts, work is ongoing.
“Our continued use of a highly effective and sophisticated CompStat model has been critical in accurately identifying crime trends and hotspots to strategically deploy resources and monitor and manage prolific offenders,” said Grobmeir. “We recognize that crime is often driven by complex social challenges, including addictions, mental health, and homelessness. That’s why we emphasize collaboration with community partners to address root causes and reduce crime opportunities.”
Nationally, the volume and severity of police-reported crime in Canada decreased four per cent last year after three annual increases in a row, according to Statistics Canada.Â
Statistics Canada said non-violent crime had a significant effect on the decline in the overall crime severity index in 2024.
The non-violent crime severity index — which includes such crimes as property and drug offences — dropped six per cent last year, following a nine per cent increase from 2021 to 2023.
Among the factors driving that decline was a 17 per cent drop in the rate of motor vehicle theft since 2023, to 239 incidents per 100,000 people. The reversal followed a three-year rise in police-reported car thefts following the historic low recorded in 2020, Statistics Canada noted.
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The problem with using statistics, is that is never considers all of the variables and in this case many people stopped reporting crimes stopped or because people often never responded or when they did, the criminal was never caught or if caught, never charged. People gave up wasting their time on long phone calls to police reporting the crime!
I personally know 7 others, including myself who gave up and are now moving towards other methods to bring change! We don’t waste our time calling police anymore so those statistics are not calculated into the CSI, so do not get misled!
I and other business owners witness the crimes daily and these stats reported are from the last year!
I would almost state this is misleading by saying there is a reduction. Perhaps in some areas, but I go by what I see everyday on the streets and in my CCTV cameras when I open up in the morning!
If the crimes are not reported, they do not reflect on these stats in the CSI and I can tell you that many times when we called, no arrests or charges were laid! We now deal with them ourselves, so save our time!
I am disappointed in this report and wonder if the city election has anything to do with the release at this time of year!
Here are some facts on the CSI system:
The police-reported Crime Severity Index (CSI) is a summary measure of the volume and severity of police-reported crime in an area—a city, a province or territory, or the country.
However, the CSI is not intended to be used in isolation and is not a universal indicator of community safety.
The conventional crime rate is calculated by adding up the number of crimes reported by police for a given period and geographical area and then dividing that total by the population count for the area.
This is from the government website on understanding the CSI!
If the crimes are not reported, they are not included and in some cases if the person is not charged, they are not reported.
Statistics do not tell the whole story and can be misleading!
this report is an outrage. how on earth can anyone now complain about how awful and unsafe is our downtown? what are they do to? i suppose they could look abroad to the gaza, and complain that not only is that place unsafe, it is entirely inhumane, crimes against humanity being perpetuated by israel and the usa…real serious stuff to be sure; but, i have a feeling there is a type among us here that sees israel and the usa as true heroes.
The report may as well be a fairy tale after witnessing incidents downtown and dealing with LPS, their communications/dispatch center and conflicts around our neighbourhood, including just trying to walk peaceably through Galt Gardens while talking on my phone with a friend and being harrassed by paranoid addicts who thought I was live streaming them.
I have learned from dealing with the issues on our streets downtown since 2015 that you can spew all the numbers you want, but it doesn’t change what we experience daily downtown.
There are times of reasonable calm when we go ballistic on leadership at city hall and LPS, but that is only short term. We are tired, we are mad and we have lost trust in LPS and I do not call LPS anymore, after experiencing issues with the communications center and responding members who failed and had to file formal complaints.
Where has all the extra money pumped into LPS gone? What I see is downtown being ignored, even though they have the top two hotspots in the city, Shelter as #1 and the Petro Canada block as #2, yet the DTU which only has 3 members on duty during daytime and none overnight and often weekends no DTU and when LPS are called they at those times, they come from other areas of the city and take 1-3 hours to arrive . . . where are all these new resources?
Many of the crimes downtown happen overnight, when we have no Downtown Unit working they say they are now an 8 member unit, but split those up over shifts and then consider sick leave, vacation and you have 2-3 members including Sgt. Darroch.
Would you not think that if they were serious about reducing the crime downtown they were focus more resources on the issues? Downtown goes from Scenic to Mayor Magrath Drive and about London Road (7th avenue south) to 5th avenue north, but often they are called outside of those boundaries.
I am not the only one upset with how they deployed resources and let me remind all of you that it spreads like a cancer throughout the city. When gangs conflict with other downtown for territory they move to other areas to conduct their criminal activities.
Many of us had a good laugh at their declaration recently was a ‘success’ while over 100 people were encamped around the old El Dorado block and over the Service Canada with smaller encampments in Galt Gardens. They would clean them up and hours later the same people moved back in for another week or so, until they wasted more manpower to move them, clean the area and didn’t stop them from moving back, while the shelter sat around 40% occupancy! They wouldn’t stay in the shelter because they couldn’t conduct their criminal activities from their . . . so it was a law enforcement issue! Many of the crimes are committed by the people who are in these encampments or sleeping rough on our streets. Why do they get to continue with impunity? Why do the citizens have to pay the price? We are already paying about $14 million annually from our property taxes alone to counter these criminal activities, but leadership allows it to continue!
Now you come out with this report from the last year, which again many of us laugh at the numbers and the fairy tale trying to tell us it is all good?
We see if everyday! You can put all the lipstick on this pig you want, but the issues are still right in our faces everyday! You allow this to happen!