Brantford is the fifth safest city in all of Canada according to a new study by the website Rentola.ca despite years of being labeled in Maclean’s magazine rankings as one of the most dangerous cities.
The ranking uses data that includes the usual crime severity index, where Brantford sits at #21 in the country and violent crime severity index where the city is #22, but includes other criteria not normally included in other rankings.
“I’m not a statistician,” said Mayor Kevin Davis in response to the ranking, “but I think the difference is that Maclean’s tends to focus on one statistic but Rentola looked at five or six factors.
“There are positive things happening so I think this is also a reflection of that.”
The list of top ten safest cities in Canada was very Ontario-heavy.
Led by Barrie and Brantford, in descending order it included Guelph; Toronto; Saint John, NB; Beautiful city; Windsor; St. Catharines-Niagara; Lethbridge, AB; and Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo.
Brantford Police Chief Rob Davis was also chief for four years in Lethbridge, leaving in the summer of 2019 to return to Brantford.
Two areas where the city scored extremely high were in the number of citizens per police officers (fifth in the country) and #1 in Canada for the crime-solving rate, which measures how effectively the police and justice system deal with with crime and solve boxes.
“We have the second highest police officer ratio in Ontario,” said Davis, “because we refuse to accede to the ‘de-fund movement’ and we gave police what they asked for.”
The mayor said a helping factor could be that the current and former police chiefs have worked on a more efficient use of police resources to ensure highly trained officers are dedicated to more serious crime instead of petty crime.
To that end, the city has substantially increased its bylaw enforcement department and special constables began working in the downtown area in 2022.
A ‘guns and gangs’ unit was established several years ago and has been expanded with provincial funding.
Police spokesperson Robin Matthews-Osmond said the city’s crime severity index (CSI) has shown drops in the last few years but, she warned, as Brantford Police participated in some joint operations with specialized units, it’s expected the next release of CSI numbers will show an increase.
There was also an increase in area murders and attempted murders in 2022 and, in the CSI, more weight is given to violent crime than property crime.
Matthews-Osmond said the targeted efforts of the new TIGER unit (Tactical Intelligence Generated Enforcement) have proven especially successful, seizing an estimated $2.3 million in illegal drugs last year.
Police services such as Brantford’s use a Uniform Crime Reporting system that feeds into the CSI and ensures accurate statistics are consistent from community to community.
According to the Rentola ranking, Brantford’s violent crime severity index placed the city at #22 while the non-violent CSI put it at #14.
“Maybe we shouldn’t be so hard on ourselves,” said Mayor Davis.
“We often have people from outside our community seeing something positive that we’re missing.”
Davis said he wasn’t accepting the new rankings in their entirety but believes them to be a positive indicator.
“This council and our police services are all committed to improving citizen safety and we have some more improvements coming this year. It’s a top priority for this council.”
@EXPSGamble
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