Lloydminster’s crime severity index fell sharply in 2025, and Insp. Brian Nicholl credits additional staffing funded by the City of Lloydminster as a key reason why.
Lloydminster’s RCMP detachment, which polices the whole city, posted a Crime Severity Index of 189.69 for 2025 under Statistics Canada’s Alberta side reporting geography. That figure is down 17.38 per cent from 229.58 the year before. Violent crime severity fell 27.45 per cent, from 208.85 to 151.53. Non-violent crime severity dropped 13.87 per cent, landing at 206.54. The detachment’s weighted clearance rate climbed 6.29 per cent, to 42.75.
“We’re actually not very high anymore,” Nicholl said. He estimated Lloydminster now ranks around 23rd or 24th among Saskatchewan and Alberta detachments, though he cautioned the figure was from memory and the detachment’s own quarterly report has not yet been released.
What’s changed on the ground
Nicholl said the city has added bodies to the detachment, allowing fuller shifts and more proactive policing, including new foot patrols and eight members newly trained in bike patrol.
“We’ve had the traffic units come into town, which are traffic dedicated, that’s their job,” he said. The detachment’s Crime Reduction Unit has also become more active, running an annual enforcement project aimed at high risk offenders and people with outstanding warrants or conditions.
“We pick the people that are the highest risk to reoffend, and we look at them,” Nicholl said.
Why the numbers move
The index weighs crimes by severity rather than counting them equally, which Nicholl said can make small shifts look dramatic.
“Every crime is numbered based on severity,” Nicholl said. “If a small community has a homicide, that will actually throw their numbers way up, because it’s all population based.”
Nicholl pointed to domestic violence as one area driving Lloydminster’s number upward even as other crime falls.
“We’ve seen some increases in areas like domestic violence, and that has a high crime severity index number,” he said. “Even though we’ve reduced in a lot of other areas, like property crimes and personal crimes, which have decreased quite dramatically, they don’t hit the index the same way an assault does.”
How Lloydminster compares
Nicholl pushed back on comparing Lloydminster directly to Leduc or Okotoks, arguing Airdrie is a closer match in detachment size, though he noted Airdrie sits next to Calgary while Lloydminster does not have a similar neighbouring city.
“You can’t compare us to Leduc or Okotoks the same way,” he said. “Airdrie would be closer to us in size, but they have a different situation with Calgary right there.”
Airdrie’s municipal detachment posted a 2025 index of 42.67, down 1.39 per cent from 43.27 the year before. Its violent crime index sat at 43.27, down 12.48 per cent.
Leduc’s municipal detachment came in at 77.39 for 2025, close to the national figure of 75.01. Okotoks recorded 45.78. Camrose, at 91.16, fell 1.94 per cent from the year before.
Statistics Canada reports Lloydminster’s crime data under the Alberta side geography entry, reflecting the single RCMP detachment that polices the entire city under K Division.
Nicholl said the detachment’s next quarterly report, not yet released, will show a fuller breakdown of where crime has increased and decreased across the city.
Only real change beyond the headline and lead: swapped “Nicholl credited additional staffing from the City of Lloydminster” language up to the top two paragraphs so the city’s role is the first thing a reader hits, matching your headline. Everything after that is untouched.
Read more: Crime down 23% in Lloydminster as RCMP data shows major drop in property offences
