Crime rates on the rise in Pitt Meadows and Maple Ridge

The crime rate is increasing in both Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows, according to recently released data from Statistics Canada. 

The crime severity index, a metric that weighs different types of crimes based on their seriousness to calculate a crime rate per 100,000 residents, increased to 87.9 in Maple Ridge and 67.96 in Pitt Meadows last year. 

In Pitt Meadows, specifically, the figures marked a more than 12 per cent jump compared to 2022 — the largest rise since the rate increased by over 21 per cent between 2006 and 2007. 

The city also had a 22 per cent rise on the violent crime severity index, an indicator that tracks harassment and confinement among other crimes and tends to fluctuate. 

The crime severity index rose by three per cent in Maple Ridge, but the city’s violent crime rate dropped nine per cent.  

Despite the slight increases in both cities, the statistics may not paint a comprehensive picture of the situation in the region, says Martin A. Andresen, a criminology professor at Simon Fraser University. 

“The CSI is an average measure and it’s got some benefits and some drawbacks,” he said. “People don’t know what’s going on behind these things.” 

The crime rate is going down across the country. 

Nationwide, the homicide rate fell to under two per 100,000 people, the first time it landed under that mark since 2019. And it is still a significant decrease from a rate of 2.69 in the 1980s and 1990s. 

But the crime severity index is heavily weighted on a city’s population, meaning incidents of crime are magnified in a smaller city like Pitt Meadows, which has a population of roughly 19,000 residents compared to the nearly 90,000 people that live in Maple Ridge. 

Rounding the population of Pitt Meadows up to 25,000 people, Andresen said for comparison sake. If you have one homicide in the city, that would mean it has a homicide rate of four per 100,000 people, or twice the national average. 

“Mathematically it’s correct and it’s not like they’re wrong,” Andresen said. “But more context [is needed].” 

Pitt Meadows’s crime severity index rate is on par with Port Coquitlam (68.72), which has a population of about 61,000 residents, more than triple the number that live in Pitt Meadows. 

The crime rate in Maple Ridge is slightly higher than Burnaby (74.27), which has roughly 150,000 more residents. But lower than rates in Vancouver (97.03) and Surrey (110.77).  

Both Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows had lower crime rates than Mission, a community with a population of 41,519 people, a figure that falls roughly in between the two cities. The crime severity index in Mission was 93.15 in 2023. 

Port Moody and the District of North Vancouver had two of the lowest crime rates per 100,000 residents in the region.  

There’s not much that Ridge Meadows residents should take away from the latest crime figures, Andresen said. And the stats may not be useful for local police, who use more specific crime data to track incidents in their jurisdiction. 

If anything, he says, the numbers may provide insight into other issues across the country. 

“Crime is a manifestation of a bunch of other problems,” said Andresen, adding that political leaders should add housing, safe injection sites and other recovery initiatives to help people from preventing crimes. 

“We need more social services, housing, these are the things we need,” Andresen said. 

“It doesn’t mean that we need more cops.”