ESTEVAN — Estevan Police Chief Jamie Blunden wasn’t surprised to see an increase in the crime severity index (CSI) rating for the Estevan Police Service's coverage area in 2025.
The data released by Statistics Canada on July 22 showed that Estevan’s CSI rating was at 97.93 for 2025, a 3.39 per cent increase from the 94.72 recorded the previous year.
The violent crime figure stood at 129.79, a 14.22 per cent increase from the 113.62 recorded in 2024. The non-violent crime figure, meanwhile, was 86.03, a 2.19 per cent decrease from 87.96 in 2024.
Blunden said the EPS anticipated the numbers would be in that range. He noted a homicide in 2025 was going to push Estevan’s number higher, since that crime is the highest weighted incident for the CSI. While he’s not sure exactly how much the homicide influenced Estevan’s number, Blunden said they knew it would have an impact.
“We know there is going to be an increase anytime we have something like a homicide or a critical incident," he said.
The police chief described the CSI document as a “report card” on how Estevan measures up against the rest of the province and the country.
“We always want to compare ourselves to our neighbours, and we always want to compare ourselves to the Saskatchewan standards and the national numbers," he said.
Among the six Saskatchewan cities with municipal policing services, Estevan had the third-highest CSI, with Prince Albert (285.01) and Saskatoon (108.87) posting higher totals. Moose Jaw (92.28), Regina (91.44) and Weyburn (70.83) were lower than Estevan.
One figure that impressed Blunden was Estevan's weighted clearance rate, which stood at 59.13, up 4.88 per cent from 56.38 the previous year. The homicide again influenced the figure, which was the best for Estevan since Statistics Canada started tracking the data for the city in 1998.
“Our members are tenacious here,” said Blunden. “They investigate and they’re good at what they do.”
The weighted clearance rate for violent crime stood at 83.74, a 19.92 per cent increase, and the highest number for Estevan since a 92.94 recorded in 2017. The non-violent number was 44.29, a 10.4 per cent decline from the previous year.
The national average, Blunden said, was 36.6 and the provincial rate was 41.4. The next-closest for the Saskatchewan city municipal forces was Moose Jaw at 51.61.
“We look over at the violent clearance rate, we’re at 83.7 … compared to Saskatchewan at 55 and Canada at 54.5. Well above the norm and the averages," he said.
It’s a credit to the men and women in the EPS who work “very, very hard” in their investigations, adding the members often take their work home.
Blunden noted the EPS tracks the crime data throughout the year so it knows the numbers that will be coming.
“This report just confirms some of the things that we already know. When we look at our stats and what we’re doing here in Estevan, we’re pretty happy with our members and how they do their investigations.”
Property crime remains an issue, he said, with both residential and business break and enters, and the EPS has a game plan for the issue.
“We’ve got some new technology out and we’ve got some drones that are in place,” said Blunden.
