DIDSBURY - The Didsbury RCMP detachment saw a decline in crime severity in its municipal area and an increase in its rural area in 2024, according to the Statistics Canada year’s crime report.
The crime severity index covers all Criminal Code violations including traffic, as well as drug violations and all federal statutes.
In the index, all crimes are assigned a weight based on their seriousness. The level of seriousness is based on actual sentences handed down by the courts. More serious crimes are assigned higher weights, less serious offences lower weights.
In its municipal area - Didsbury - the detachment’s crime severity index in 2024 was 56.51, compared with 79.68 in 2023, 78.38 in 2022, and 89.36 in 2021.
The 2024 index represents a 29.08 per cent decline over 2023.
The violent crime severity index was 58.84 in 2024, down from 92.44 in 2023 and 102.63 in 2022. The 2024 index represents a 36.35 per cent decline.
The non-violent crime severity index for 2025 was 56.06, down 25.51 per cent from 2023’s index of 75.26.
In its rural area – which includes portions of Mountain View County and the Municipal District of Bighorn as well as Carstairs and Cremona – the detachment’s crime severity index in 2024 was 62.2, an increase of 18.52 per cent over the 2023 index of 52.48. The index in 2022 was 66.98 and 98.87 in 2021.
The violent crime severity index in 2024 was 106.74, up 32.23 per cent from the 2023 index of 80.72. the index in 2022 was 94.53 and 161.12 in 2021.
The non-violent crime severity index in 2024 was 44.92, up 7.90 per cent from the 2023 index of 41.63. In 2022 the index was 56.54 and 74.83 in 2021.
“What it basically comes down to is the type of crimes that are being committed,” Didsbury RCMP detachment commander Stephen Browne told the Albertan. “Generally if you are dealing with person crimes, assaults, aggravated assaults, murders, that kind of thing, it will obviously elevate your CSI.
“We had a couple of those occurrences in the provincial area, in the rural area, which elevated it on that side and it didn’t occur in the town of Didsbury. That’s basically what it comes down to.
“It’s a hierarchy scoring system that is based on the type of offence that is being committed.”
Browne explained that the CSI numbers don’t reflect trends in the detachment area.
“I don’t take away much from the CSI to be honest with you,” he said. “It just tells us the type of crime that is happening. It doesn’t really speak to what efforts are being done to reduce crime or it doesn’t speak to the type of crime that is being committed overall.
“The way I look at it, the CSI is a statistical thing that is correlated by the type of crime and not actually what is going on.”
Asked if the latest CSI report indicates that the town is safer than the rural area, he said no.
“It doesn’t speak to crime trends at all,” he said. “It just speaks to the specific crime that is being committed.”
As for actual trends, he noted, “Overall, if you are looking at the crime statistics that really speak to what is going on, on the provincial side for January to July we are down 19 per cent on persons crimes and we are down 22 per cent on property crimes, and on the municipal side we are down 33 per cent on persons crime and down one per cent on property crimes.
“In the first half of 2025 there has been a 20 per cent decrease in total criminal offences and 14 per cent decrease on the municipal side. That tells me, if I was looking at it as a resident, that things are going in the right direction.”
The overall crime severity index in Canada declined 4.1 per cent in 2024 compared with 2023.
