Flin Flon’s crime rate stacks up favourably against northern Manitoba’s other major centres, but not so much against some other Canadian communities with similar-sized populations, a Reminder analysis shows.
The Reminder compared Flin Flon’s recently released 2015 crime statistics with those of The Pas, Thompson and six other communities across the country that have population sizes in the same range as Flin Flon’s 5,592 residents.
Results show that while Flin Flon recorded a significantly lower crime rate than both The Pas and Thompson last year, it far exceeded rates in five
of the six other communities.
Flin Flon recorded an overall Criminal Code violation rate of 21,929 offences per 100,000 people in 2015. Crimes classified as violent, such as assaults, carried a per-capita rate of 3,404.
The Pas recorded an overall per-capita crime rate of 63,987, nearly triple that of Flin Flon. The violent crime rate in The Pas was 6,464, almost double Flin Flon’s rate.
Thompson’s overall crime rate of 33,060 was 50 per cent higher than that of Flin Flon. And Thompson’s violent rate of 6,299 was nearly double that of Flin Flon.
Both The Pas and Thompson have unusually high crime rates, particularly for communities of their size. For more perspective, The Reminder contrasted Flin Flon’s rates to those of six other communities: Gananoque, ON (pop. 5,194), St. Paul, AB (5,400), Marystown, NL (5,506), Melfort, SK (5,576), Redcliff, AB (5,588) and Grand Falls, NB (5,706).
Flin Flon had a higher violent crime rate than all six communities. Flin Flon’s violent rate nearly quadrupled that of Marystown and was double that of Melfort.
Common assault, an oft-reported form of violent crime, occurred at a much higher rate in Flin Flon than in the six other communities.
In terms of overall crime, five of the six communities had per-capita rates that were less than half of Flin Flon’s rate. The exception was St. Paul, whose crime rate was nearly 40 per cent higher.
St. Paul was also the only community on the list with a higher property crime rate than Flin Flon. None of the other five communities even came close to Flin Flon’s rate.
Flin Flon fared better when it came to drug crime, with a per-capita rate below or only marginally above five of the six communities. St. Paul had by far the highest rate.
Flin Flon had the dubious distinction of recording the highest per-capita break-and-enter rate of The Pas, Thompson and the six other communities. On average, Flin Flon recorded one break-and-enter every 5.5 days. A number of those intrusions involved garages and other uninhabited structures.
Of the eight communities examined, The Pas had the second-highest break-and-enter rate – 33 per cent lower than that of Flin Flon.
City’s approach
Mayor Cal Huntley sees no need for more police officers in Flin Flon following word that crime increased 21 per cent in 2015.
But he does see a need for a careful reading of what crime statistics say.
“You have to be careful when you look at stats and how you interpret them,” Huntley said when asked about crime on Tuesday. “But in saying that, we’re working with the RCMP. We don’t see any need to increase police officers here. It’s a very expensive process to do that. We don’t believe that there’s any immediate-risk increase to the general population. So there’s been some break-and-enters, and there’s been things like that, and they’re working on it. And this has happened before and will happen again. It will tone down and get back to normal, and maybe better than normal.”
Huntley added that the city’s Clean and Green strategy to beautify the community should pay dividends in terms of crime.
“If the community looks good, if you’re knocking down derelict buildings, you’re going to see a decrease in crime as well,” he said. “So … Clean and Green impacts more than just visual, it actually impacts the social nature of the community as well. So I think we’re travelling down the right road and we’ll see some results from that.”
The Reminder reported on Flin Flon’s year-over-year crime increase on Wednesday.
