Residents of Essex County can take comfort knowing they live in some of the country’s safest communities.
Statistics Canada released its national crime statistics on Wednesday and identified LaSalle, Amherstburg and Kingsville among the top 10 safest communities in the country.
The rankings are based on the crime severity index which measures the volume and severity of police-related crime for 305 policing communities with a population over 10,000.
LaSalle led the pack locally with a crime severity index of 19.34 — making it the third safest community in Canada.
Amherstburg was slightly behind placing fourth with a CSI of 19.35 and Kingsville came in tenth safest with a CSI of 23.2.
Statistics Canada senior analyst Mary Allen said the crime severity index provides another dimension of crime reporting in a community.
Allen said the crime rate examines the number of crimes in a community while the CSI looks at the severity of the crimes.
“If one town has 10 minor thefts and the other town has 10 murders, it’s kind of different,” she said.
“So the crime severity index takes into account not just the volume of crime but also the severity.”
Other towns in Essex County ranked high among the 305 communities as well.
The Town of Essex ranked 13th, Lakeshore 14th and Tecumseh 15th.
Leamington came in lower in the list at No. 82 and Windsor ranked 227th.
The Statistics Canada report is based on data from 2015.
The title of safest community in the country now belongs to Northumberland, Ont. with a CSI of 13.82.
On the opposite end of the spectrum with a CSI of 320.94 is North Battleford, Sask.
