Canada’s Crime Severity Index (CSI) ranked North Battleford the most dangerous city in Canada for several years prior to 2023.
Jesse Gilbert, Battleford RCMP detachment commander, says “the numbers are there and, you know, there’s no hiding them. But they don’t tell the whole story?”
Though the index no longer ranks smaller cities like North Battleford alongside those like Saskatoon, Mayor Kelli Hawtin says the city has worked hard to change its reputation as a hotspot for crime.
“…over five years we’re looking at a 67 per cent reduction in firearms offences, specifically. That’s one statistic we’re looking at. And we are seeing an overall reduction in calls for service year over year, but also over the last five years. So, we feel that some of the work we’re doing here is really starting to pay off.”
Battlefords RCMP commander Insp. Jesse Gilbert says it’s not just firearm crimes going downward, but crime overall.
“So between 2023 and 2024, we had a 9 per cent reduction in persons crime in the city and we had an 11 per cent reduction in property crime. And then when you’re looking at the rural areas that we cover, same time period, we had a 15 per cent reduction in persons and a 14 per cent in property crime,”
Both Gilbert and Hawtin admit the city’s gains in crime reduction have been slower than they’d like due to challenges with police staffing.
“It’s very difficult for RCMP and community safety officers to be always patrolling because they’re often responding,” says Hawtin.
“…especially when we’re in an issue with the staffing as we have been, your priority kind of shifts to where you can make the biggest impact over 2024,” says Gilbert. “That definitely was the front-line policing,”
The Battleford Regional Community Coalition, consisting of mayors and chiefs of the surrounding area, also aided crime progress last year through various support initiatives.
“We use that group to actually work on advocacy for these larger health and social issues that our municipal governments can’t necessarily combat,” says Hawtin. “But we need to influence and ask for support. So that’s been another initiative over the last couple of years that seems very positive it’s awesome,”
Gilbert says community support is essential for problems outside the scope of police like homelessness and drug abuse.
“You’ve probably heard it said a dozen times that, you know, we can’t police ourselves out of this or enforcement will only address this. And it is true because things that lead into crime are affected by other social issues which we need our partner agencies on.”
Hawtin says the city remains committed to supporting police with the resources they need to address problems effectively.
“…the city funded a four-member task force that worked for the entire region and their mandate was really guns, gangs and drugs,”
Something police and RCMP say is encouraging for lowering crime in the coming year.
“I’m constantly impressed by the city, the town, the first nations, the RMs. Everybody seems to want to work towards the same thing and make it a better community,” says Gilbert. “So it’s really nice that you can kind of plug yourselves into a spot where everyone is trying to move forward and make things better.”
According to Statistics Canada, crime stats from the CSI don’t accurately represent whether a community is “safe” or “unsafe.” The Statistics Canada website states “the CSI is not intended to be used in isolation and is not a universal indicator of community safety,” and “other complimentary sources of information, both within and outside the criminal justice system must also be considered to draw a full picture of crime and safety in an area.”
With a new mayor and a new year ahead, North Battleford hopes to make even further progress reducing its crime and restoring its image.