By Cheryl Jahn

City to attend crime severity conference

Feb 15, 2024 | 3:56 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – Prince George has had something of a bad rap when it comes to its reputation for being a crime-ridden city. And it joins a long list of communities with populations over 10,000 in the same category.

“I remember when we moved here 24 years ago, my mom was like, ‘What are you doing moving to Prince George? It’s at the top of the list,’ right? So we have spent our time at the top of that list, and we are one of them,” says Councillor Trudy Klassen. “And so we were invited to attend this conference because of those concerns and that we all share with a lot of these cities in the north that are in the top of the crime severity index.”

That’s why the City has been invited to a crime severity conference in Saskatoon later this month. The conference was initiated by the City of North Battleford, for whom the Mayor of the City wrote: “Much like other municipalities, the City of North Battleford prepares for the annual onslaught of negative attention drawn by the release of the Statistics Canada Crime Severity index ranking. Our communities received negative media attention simply from the release of the report. As you are likely aware, the factors involved with the Crime Severity Index weighting are complex and not well understood and/or properly interpreted.”

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But Prince George has been struck with a spate of crime recently, with an armed robbery, a pair of drive-by shootings and the second homicide of the year.

“To have gun violence in the wake of some firearms being stolen isn’t necessarily something that we should think is out of the realm of possibility, though. So we’re looking at all of these factors and trying to see where they’re connected and who are, you know, persons of interest.”

And the City views the rankings as not good for business.

Councillor Trudy Klassen hopes there will be some sort of resolution as a result of the conference.

“Services have declined. Those essential things that people that communities need to be able to support, people who are having, for instance, mental health and addictions problems like all of those things, those we desperately need more money there.”

The conference takes place February 28th and 29th.