The Edmonton Police Service released its preliminary data on crime and policing in the city in 2024 and says while there was a drop in crime, you might not know it because public perceptions have not yet caught up.
“People are not yet feeling the shifts we see,” Police Chief Dale McFee said during Thursday’s lengthy presentation delving into the statistics.
“They tell us that their own perceptions of safety are tied as much to the disorder they see as the actual crime they experience and witness.
“Frankly, they are worried on what they see downtown or on transit reflects the new reality.”
Despite a 5.1 per cent increase in calls for service — which the EPS said is their highest on record — police said the overall crime severity in Edmonton decreased by 3.5 per cent compared to the previous year, reaching the lowest level in 10 years.
Some of those calls for service came from EPS officers themselves as they were patrolling or engaging in proactive policing on transit and in other public spaces.
“If you look at last year, 2024, we actually saw a decrease in the amount of times the public is calling the police and an increase in the number of times our members are intervening in things proactively,” said Derek McIntyre with the EPS information and analytics division.
Transit was the place the calls came from the most. Calls for service to LRT Stations and transit centres increased by 12 per cent.
“The creation of our transit safety teams and deploying them on transit across all the lines have seen a significant increase in the number of events that our transit officers are going to” McIntyre said, adding that has also correlated with a significant decrease in the amount of crime severity measured on transit.
EPS said the drop in crime severity was due, in part, to initiatives like Safer Public Spaces, the force’s homeless approach to encampments, and the Guns and Gangs Strategy.
The city said while overall crime is down, violent incidents did see a slight increase of 1.8 per cent. But, McIntyre noted in the previous year, that increase was seven per cent, saying it indicates things are trending in the right direction.
“If that trends out over the next two years, we will start seeing negative numbers,” McIntyre said.
Firearm and pepper spray deployments decreased, while knife incidents saw a slight increase.
Edmonton police said in 2024 there was a 47 per cent decrease in shootings and use of a firearm calls compared to 2023, which was marked by gun violence.
However, police said there are still a lot of guns on the streets.
“We are finding firearms through investigative means, through proactive means before those firearms are able to be used. This speaks volumes to everything we’re doing in our guns and gang strategy, everything we are doing in relation to our proactive deployment,” McIntyre said.
“It is not a surprising day for our transit officers to have an interaction with someone and they have a gun in their backpack on the train. These are the places that we are making gains.”
Police said for the first time, caustic spray — more commonly known as bear or pepper spray — is one of the most commonly used weapons in Edmonton, but said those numbers too are starting to trend down.
It isn’t all good news. Domestic and intimate partner violence calls have increased by 10.7 per cent over the past five years, since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
While there was a three per cent drop in 2024, the numbers are still grim: police responded to 9,173 incidents in 2024, compared to 8,288 in 2019.
The high numbers have prompted EPS to partner with the province to work together because of the complexity surrounding intimate partner violence.
“There is a lot of intervention that needs to occur — a lot of things around mental health and addiction, a lot of things around food security, income security and these are all spaces we are very active in, but we do not lead,” McIntyre said.
Citywide, the average crime severity decreased by 3.5 per cent in 2024. But what does “crime severity” actually mean?
“Every crime has a score. Every crime has a value. It’s called the uniform crime reporting,” McIntyre said, adding the force takes that data, and factors in things like the population to get the number.
“If violence is up a little bit by 1.8 per cent, something has to be going down significantly for all of the crime severity to go down 3.5 per cent.”
So where did that drop come from? Property crime, drug crime and weapons possessions were all areas police said saw reductions.
EPS noted the numbers are all based on population, which increased significantly over the past two years due to immigration and people moving to Edmonton from other provinces.
“When we get the new number from StatsCan, which comes out in the July release, those will be factored in and that crime severity and crime rate reductions, which we’re seeing reductions in, both will be even larger than we’re currently reporting today,” McIntyre said.
That said, Edmonton police know all their work means little of the public doesn’t see changes for themselves.
“We know that our presence matters,” McFee said.
The chief acknowledged while the statistics show improvement, the perception of safety has not yet caught up, with many residents still concerned about disorder and safety, especially in the downtown core and on transit.
He said changing those attitudes will be the force’s biggest challenge in the months to come.
“People feel safer when they see police in their communities. They know that police presence on transit and in their communities deter crime, solves crimes and disorder and it increasing perceptions of safety.”
McIntyre said research backs that up.
“People typically don’t commit crime right in front of the police and they don’t commit disorder right in front of the police,” he said.
That said, he added enforcement is just one tool and it isn’t always the most appropriate one in all circumstances.
“When we are in a distressed community where there is a high level of disorder and we’re there proactively, our approach is around empathy, compassion, connection to service,” he said, adding police will still enforce the law when necessary.
“We are the police, we do dole out accountability as well — we don’t lead with it. We lead with what is going to get this person to a better outcome, not just today, but for tomorrow as well.”
