A report by Statistics Canada suggests the rate of crime in Chatham-Kent (CK) saw a dip in 2024.
The national statistical office released its annual Crime Severity Index (CSI) on Tuesday with CK receiving a score of 74. This is down from 76.17 in 2023.
Statistics Canada develops these numbers by giving each crime a score, with the worst crimes getting the highest score, adding everything together and then dividing it by the area's population.
CK Police Chief Kirk Earley told CK News Today he believes a big reason there was a drop is because there were more officers.
"I was at council not too long ago and I talked about no matter how much tech or equipment we put in place, we are in the business of people and at the end of the day we need people and boots on the ground to keep the community safe," he said.
At the end of 2023, CK's council approved a request to hire 43 new uniformed and civilian members over a four year span. Earley explained many of these positions have been filled, though he didn't have an exact number. The hope is to have the police service at full capacity by early 2026.
CK's score of 74 is still one of the highest in all of southwestern Ontario. The only areas with higher scores are Windsor and Sarnia.
A big contributor to CK's score is violent crime. It was given a score of 77.37 in 2024, up from 72.73 in 2023.
Local data from the CK police service backs up the increase in the report.
There were three murders and two attempted murders last year, up one in each category from 2023.
Aggravated assaults were also up from 14 to 26, criminal harassment increased from 132 to 255, and weapons calls jumped from 32 to 38.
However, sexual assaults, assaults, and abductions were down.
"Some areas went up and some areas dropped," said Earley.
While it would be impossible to pinpoint what's causing people to commit more violent crimes, Earley believes drugs are playing a major role.
It's not all bad news when it comes to CK's violent crime score as it's actually lower than the provincial average. Statistics Canada gave Ontario a score of 81.28.
"We're still below the average which is a good thing, but it's still never a good thing when it goes up," added Earley.
Despite scoring an 81.28 in violent crime, the province's overall CSI was much lower than CK's at 60.69.
Meanwhile, Earley believes the CSI is a good tool for the public and police forces.
That being said, he doesn't think it should be the only tool used to monitor crime trends.
"This comes out once a year and it's good to see what we did last year, but I want to get data and crime stats almost weekly and daily to help gauge where we are as a community and where we need to deploy our resources," explained Earley.
People can view CK's full CSI report on Statistics Canada's website.