Crime Rates Shift in St. Thomas

Chief Marc Roskamp highlights several policing efforts aimed at curbing violent crime

Joe Konecny • Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Sep 10, 2025 •

St. Thomas police Chief Marc Roskamp (Mike Hensen/Postmedia Network)

The latest Statistics Canada’s Crime Severity Index indicates that St. Thomas has seen a 17.57 per cent decrease in overall crime severity recently, even though there’s been a noticeable rise in violent crime.

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The overall Crime Severity Index figure combines Stats Can’s report of a 31.76 per cent drop in non-violent crime severity data from 2022 to 2024 with a significant increase of 22.3 per cent in violent crime severity data during the same period.

<p“While our overall progress is encouraging, violent crime remains an area where we will continue to focus our efforts,” St. Thomas Police Services Chief Marc Roskamp mentioned when discussing the Stats Can data at the city council meeting on Sept. 2.

“Our immediate goal is to enhance intelligence-led policing strategies, coordinate front-line responses, strengthen community partnerships, advocate for meaningful justice system reforms, and ensure timely intervention for high-risk individuals and situations.”

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The chief emphasized that implementing the department’s critical incident response team and other initiatives is crucial for tackling incidents of violent crime in St. Thomas.

“The establishment of our (critical incident response team), ongoing investment in both street crime and property crime Units, continuous support for front-line resources, creating a crime analysis unit, adding a second K9 unit, and planned redeployment strategies for uniformed assets will help reduce violent crime in our city,” Roskamp’s report stated.

<p“Focusing on this area continues to be our main operational priority going forward as we work diligently to get all approved resources into action. Investments made by the police services board and city council are yielding tangible results by decreasing both crime rates and social disorder within our community.”

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The index calculation involves Stats Can assigning weights to each type of crime based on its relative severity. These weights rely on standardized information from court sentencing data gathered over five years. Crimes that often lead to prison time and longer sentences carry higher weights.

The number of police-reported incidents for each type of offense is then multiplied by its assigned weight.

<p. For instance, murder holds a weight exceeding 8,200 while property theft carries a weight of just 29. Therefore, one murder affects the Crime Severity Index roughly 280 times more than a stolen wallet does.

<p. The leading contributors to the violent crime severity index include robbery, sexual assaults, assaults and uttering threats.

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“P. Growth can bring new opportunities but also presents unexpected social challenges like strains on housing availability mental health services youth support systems; along with increased pressure on the justice system,” noted the chief’s report.
“With rising population density diversity comes greater demand placed upon emergency service provisions safety infrastructures” further emphasizes.”Addressing underlying issues such as mental health addiction homelessness requires coordinated action rather than simply increasing law enforcement resources.”In my opinion strengthening these partnerships represents most effective route moving ahead towards lowering demands placed upon police ensuring long-term security well-being communities.” Joe Konecny is a Local Journalism Initiative Reporter with Aylmer Express which receives funding from Government Of Canada. Read More