For the fifth year in a row, Weyburn has seen a decline in the number of criminal incidents reported by police.

The latest numbers from Statistics Canada were released Monday morning. They show a four per cent drop in criminal incidents in 2016 when compared to 2015. The numbers from 2016 were also 36.3 per cent lower than 2012.

In all, there were 882 violations reported in the Statistics Canada report. Of those, 180 were considered violent. The number was down by six per cent from 2015. There was a slight uptick in property crimes. It increased by four per cent, to 402. These crimes include break and enter, and fraud, both of which were up last year.

The crime severity index for Weyburn was up in 2016. The index assigns a weight to a crime based on the seriousness, which in turn is determined by the actual sentences handed down by the courts.

Weyburn’s crime severity index was 74.16, which is an increase from 2015. The number pales to the provincial index, which was 148.84, and was just above the federal average of 70.16. There was a drastic difference when looking at the violent crime severity index.

In Weyburn, it was 52.85. Provincially, the violent crime severity index was 146.08, almost triple the index in Weyburn. Federally, it was 75.25.

The numbers come just weeks after Weyburn was ranked the best place to live on the Prairies by MoneySense magazine, based in part on the low crime rates in the community.