St. Albert's Crime Severity Index (CSI) dropped by nearly eight per cent in 2024, continuing a provincewide trend of declining crime reported by Statistics Canada.
Newly released data from Statistics Canada shows St. Albert’s overall CSI fell from 64.40 in 2023 to 59.36 in 2024, a 7.83 per cent decrease. The CSI measures both the volume and seriousness of crimes reported to police, with more severe offences receiving greater weight.
The city’s non-violent crime severity index saw the most significant decline, dropping nearly 10 per cent from 67.97 in 2023 to 61.18 in 2024. Violent crime in St. Albert also decreased slightly, with its severity index decreasing 1.34 per cent, from 56.82 in 2023 to 56.02 in 2024.
Coun. Ken Mackay, council's representative on the City’s policing committee, said the new numbers represent what he believes are the community's historic crime numbers.
“I think looking at the numbers, I mean, it's nice to see that we're trending down in both violent crime and non-violent crime,” he said. “So you know, we're starting to get down, probably into the numbers that we have consistently, kind of been at, historically.”
Mackay said one of the reasons the numbers may be dropping is due to the RCMP filling positions.
“I can't say there's a correlation between better staffing numbers and our crime severity,” said Mackay, explaining that he thinks it may have had an impact. “I think that only means that there's more time for members to actually get out and conduct investigations and follow up and stay involved.”
He said St. Albert continues to be one of Alberta’s safest mid-sized cities.
“If you look at the overall numbers,it just shows that St. Albert continues to be a safe community and one of the safest communities in Alberta, particularly as a mid-sized city,” he said.
MacKay said the increase in violent incidents seen last summer were tragic but may have been anomalies, given the city’s historically low levels of violent crime.
“When you do have a couple of incidents, it tends to show up, certainly in our statistics,” he said. “These are tragic situations that occurred in our community. But I think this potentially identifies that these are hopefully anomalies, and they were certainly tragic, but they’re outside of what’s normal for our community.”
MacKay also highlighted the role of broader community support in improving public safety.
“Numbers are down. And I think it’s good news, both for our community and for our crime prevention and crime safety programming,” he said. “It’s more than just policing, it’s everything that goes on in the community, whether it’s all the FCSS work or all of the prevention work. But it’s rewarding that our numbers are trending back to what I consider historical norms.”
Across Alberta RCMP jurisdictions, the overall crime severity index dropped by 6.9 per cent, the second-lowest level since 2015, according to a press release from the Alberta RCMP.
“We are extremely pleased to see Crime Scores declining across the province,” said Deputy Commissioner Trevor Daroux, Commanding Officer of the Alberta RCMP, in the press release. “This trend reflects the shared efforts of Alberta RCMP officers, the communities we serve and our dedicated partner agencies.”
In Alberta, the top 10 CSI contributors account for 74.9 per cent of crime across the province. The leading contributor to the provincial CSI is break and enters, accounting for 17.67 per cent of the score. Although break and enters remain the top crime category, reported cases dropped in 2024, with 875 fewer incidents compared to the previous year.
The RCMP highlighted several strategies they’ve used in the past year to reduce crime, including the use of new technology and having specialized Crime Reduction and Community Response Teams working in rural areas to address the root causes of crime and conduct targeted enforcement.
“Reducing crime isn’t the work of one group, it demands collaboration among public services, community partners, and all levels of government, but these results show that when we work together, we get results,” said Daroux. “There is still a long way to go, but the Alberta RCMP remains committed to working with our partners to protect Albertans and strengthen the communities we all proudly call home.”
