NEWS RELEASE
SOUTH SIMCOE POLICE SERVICE
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South Simcoe Police Service has recorded a significant increase in the clearance rate for violent crime, according to new report by Statistics Canada.
On Monday, July 23, 2018, the national statistical agency released the Police-reported crime statistics in Canada for 2017.
The Crime Severity Index (CSI) is a measure of police-reported crime that reflects the relative seriousness of individual offences and tracks changes in crime severity.
The South Simcoe 2017 overall CSI is reported at 27.0 which is down about seven per-cent from last year and is less than the provincial and national averages
which are 55.4 and 72.9 respectively.
The biggest news is the South Simcoe Police Service clearance rate for violent crimes that was listed at 92 per cent in 2017, which is a 26 per cent increase over the year before.
"I am extremely proud of the 2017 clearance rate numbers and want to thank each and every one of our officers for the great work that they have been doing this past year to ensure we brought our clearance rate up. Ninety-two per cent clearance of violent crimes is excellent and 42 per cent clearance of non-violent crimes is more in line with the provincial standard," said South Simcoe Police Service Chief Andrew Fletcher.
The violent crime rate is up slightly from last year at 32.3 per cent compared to 24.3 per cent in 2016. But the numbers are still significantly lower than the national rate of 71.1 per cent and the provincial rate of 68.7 per cent per-cent
"The slight increase in the violent crime rate will come as no shock to anyone working the front lines and our response to the increase in these types of calls," said Chief Fletcher. "However, this increase is offset by the significant decrease in non-violent crimes which I attribute to the great pro-active work that everyone has been doing to address some of the public nuisance type calls and prevent the less serious crimes from occurring."
The CSI for non-violent crimes was recorded at 25 per cent in 2017 compared to 37.3 per cent in 2016.
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