Lowest csi cities: comox at 36.75; 241 hometowns lack a police-service row

The 2025 OpenStats crime-severity study places 102 Canadian hometowns on police-reported Crime Severity Index (CSI) readings tied to each city’s own police service of jurisdiction. Two hundred forty-one additional hometowns lack a police-service match and receive median standing on the safety pillar inside City Score. Among placed cities, lower CSI means milder crime severity in Statistics Canada terms. The safest placements on this edition cluster in British Columbia, Quebec, and Ontario when CSI runs lowest.

Coverage split

OpenStats matched 102 cities to a police-service CSI row for the 2025 study edition. Two hundred forty-one cities remain unplaced at the safety pillar and inherit median standing in the composite. That split matters when readers compare City Score ranks: a city with a direct CSI row can move on crime alone, while an unplaced neighbour stays at the 50% standing fill until mapping improves.

Lowest CSI among placed cities

Comox leads the placed set at CSI 36.75. Port Moody and Kimberley follow near 43. Barrie at 46.93 and Saguenay at 49.31 show low CSI outside the lowest three. Ottawa at CSI 50.61 still ranks among the milder large-city readings on the placed list, which aligns with Ottawa’s favourable crime pillar rank on the City Score board.

Highest CSI on the edition

Duncan, BC ranks #1 of 102 placed cities at CSI 336.06 on the same police-service mapping used in City Score. Duncan’s CSI eased from higher readings in prior years while remaining at the top of the table. Readers researching safety should treat CSI as police-reported incident mix, then open the dedicated desk story on Duncan for year-over-year context and RCMP detachment mapping.

High CSI cities on the study page are concentrated in British Columbia RCMP municipal detachments and selected municipal services elsewhere. Vancouver sits at CSI 89.28 at rank 36 among placed cities, mid-table on severity rather than at either tail of the distribution.

Mid-table CSI among large services

Vancouver at CSI 89.28 and rank 36 among placed cities sits between Comox at 36.75 and Duncan at 336.06 on the 2025 scale. Barrie at 46.93 shows a large Ontario city with mild CSI on the placed list, which pairs with Barrie’s #2 composite standing when other pillars align. Readers comparing safety pillar rank on the composite to CSI on the study should remember that composite crime rank runs across 343 cities while CSI rank in this article uses the 102-city placed subset.

How CSI feeds City Score

Crime severity is one of eight equal-weight pillars. Direction runs so that higher CSI maps to worse standing (lower rank is worse on the pillar scoreboard). Cities without a police-service match keep median standing until OpenStats adds a row from Statistics Canada tables 35-10-0063-01 and 35-10-0026-01. The composite still averages all pillars, so unplaced cities can rank on growth, permits, and tax even when safety stays at the median fill.

Median fill and the 241 unplaced cities

City Score averages eight pillars with equal weight, and the safety pillar uses median standing when PR 64 mapping fails to attach a police-service CSI row. Two hundred forty-one hometowns inherit that neutral fill while one hundred two cities carry observed crime inputs from the 2025 study edition. Unplaced cities can still rank on tax, construction, connectivity, radon, water, seismic hazard, and growth when those pillars place them. A neighbour with direct CSI can move on crime alone while an unplaced suburb stays at 50% standing until OpenStats adds a service match in the map file.

Readers comparing safest-city headlines to composite ranks should remember the coverage split. Lowest CSI among placed cities describes the 102-city subset, while composite crime rank runs across 343 cities with direction set so higher CSI maps to worse standing. Comox at CSI 36.75 leads the placed set on mild severity. Duncan at CSI 336.06 leads the placed set on high severity and has a dedicated desk story for year-over-year context.

Low CSI clusters and large-city readings

British Columbia, Quebec, and Ontario all appear among the lowest CSI readings on the placed list. Port Moody and Kimberley follow Comox near the bottom of the distribution. Barrie and Saguenay show low CSI outside the lowest three rows. Ottawa at CSI 50.61 pairs mild severity with strong composite standing when growth and construction pillars align. Vancouver at CSI 89.28 sits mid-table among placed cities, which frames how municipal police services differ from RCMP detachments within the same province.

Policy readers and study editions

CSI aggregates police-reported incident mix relative to a base year. OpenStats publishes StatCan values for geographic comparison under PR 64, then separates editorial standards on the hub. Compare study editions when you write trend pieces rather than treating one panel as a verdict. Hometown charts show matched service names beside CSI history so readers can verify mapping before quoting a number in local copy. Safety pillar standing inside City Score still weighs equally with every other pillar on the chart.

Coverage expansion work focuses on adding police-service matches for unplaced slugs without borrowing regional averages. Each successful match replaces median fill with an observed crime input on the next composite refresh. Until mapping improves, safest-city tables describe the placed subset honestly and composite ranks describe the full corpus with median fill where crime data remains absent.