Coaldale is one of the safest municipalities of its size in the country, with a Crime Severity Index (CSI) score of 52.5. According to Statistics Canada, CSI scores are based on the number of crimes reported by police in each jurisdiction and the seriousness of them. Across the country, the score is always 100, so areas with a score below 100 are considered safer than those with scores above the base level.
The Town of Coaldale added the CSI score to its 202 Comparative Analysis document, which compares the town’s operational and financial performance to eight other municipalities that are neighbours or similar in size.
“In years past, the town’s analysis have focused on comparing Coaldale to its peer and neighbouring municipalities across five, essentially financial benchmarks,” said Cameron Mills, director of growth and investment. “Because we know crime is an area of significant interest in our community, we’ve added crime severity to our analysis moving forward. We know crime can impact other measures in the analysis like property values and population growth and that it also has significant impact on overall quality of life, so we wanted to be sure our readers understand where Coaldale fits in, relative to other municipalities in terms of the frequency and severity of crime.”
Mills said to control the fluctuations of CSI scores in the report, administration calculated a five-year average for each municipality in the analysis. Over the past five years, both violent and non-violent crimes in Coaldale remained relatively low.
“With an average CSI score of 52.5, Coaldale ranks as the safest municipality of its size in the province, the third safest municipality of its size in western Canada and the seventh safest municipality of its size in the country,” Mills said.