City ranked 23rd most dangerous by national magazine

The city’s high crime rate has a lot to do with a severe lack of addiction treatment services, says the city’s deputy police chief.

Maclean’s magazine released its annual most dangerous cities in Canada report that ranks 100 municipalities from most dangerous to safest based on 2009 data from the Statistics Canada’s crime severity index. The categories were broken up into homicide, sexual assault, robbery, motor vehicle theft and breaking and entering.

Prince George, B.C. was named the most dangerous city in Canada, followed by Victoria and Regina. Thunder Bay ranked 23rd overall, while Sault Ste. Marie ranked 40 overall.

The city took second placed for homicides with 182.08 per cent difference compared to the 1.8 murders per 100,000 population. Abbotsford, B.C. ranked first for homicides at 270.59 per cent.

The city ranked no. 2 overall for homicides and ranked 12th for robberies.

Thunder Bay Police Service Deputy Chief J.P. Levesque said many of the crimes listed involve social issues such as drug addiction and poverty. The difference between Thunder Bay and other municipalities might be that the city doesn’t have a detox facility, he said.

"We have a lot of social issues, we have poverty issues, we have drug addiction issues and we don’t have enough treatment options for those kinds of things," Levesque said on Tuesday following a police board meeting.

"We’re seeing drug addicts committing those crimes, being released on conditions and then committing property crimes to feed that habit. In a lot of cases those municipalities have better facilities and more treatment options. We can’t send them to court and then have them send to a detox centre.

"There is no facility here where other municipalities do have one."