“The rate of firearm homicides per 100,000 population has generally been declining since the mid-1970s and, in 2011, reached its lowest point in almost 50 years.”
The Canadian murder weapon of choice is now the blade.
“An increase in stabbings accounted for virtually the entire increase in homicides in 2011,” the federal data agency said.
It said there were 39 more stabbings in 2011 compared to 2010. Overall, stabbings accounted for 35 per cent of homicides, firearms for 27 per cent, beatings for 22 per cent and strangulation for seven per cent.
Toronto, Canadian crime rates decline but more homicide reported
The deadly Danzig St. and Eaton Centre shootings may be occupying Toronto’s consciousness and political agenda, yet both the rate and severity of crime in the city dropped in 2011.
Police-reported crime in Canada dropped 6 per cent last year to its lowest level since 1972, even though murder rates inched slightly higher, according to Statistics Canada’s latest report.
And in a seemingly gun-plagued Toronto, the severity of crimes dropped 5 per cent.
In fact, Guelph and Quebec City were the only two metropolitan areas with a lower crime severity index than Toronto. (The index measures the seriousness of crime by giving a higher weight to murder than, say, marijuana possession.)
But there were still 86 murders recorded in the Toronto census metropolitan area, compared with 80 in 2010.
When the size of the Toronto census metropolitan area is considered (it includes most of the GTA, but excludes Burlington and Oshawa), it remains relatively safe. The homicide rate of 1.5 per 100,000 people is below the national average of 1.7 homicides per 100,000 residents. Toronto’s rate is lower than Winnipeg, with 5.1 homicides per 100,000 population, and Halifax (4.4), Edmonton (4.2) and Regina (3.2).
The numbers confirm that Toronto is “the safest big city in Canada,” Toronto police spokesman Mark Pugash said Tuesday.
Violence, such as the recent neighbourhood slayings, attracts peoples’ attention, so they are often surprised to learn the city’s violent crime severity index is below the national average, Pugash said.
(The index is derived by multiplying an offence’s weight by the number of offences, adding them all together, then dividing the total by the corresponding population and standardizing it to 100.)
“It doesn’t for a second diminish the seriousness of what we’ve seen recently,” Pugash said — nor does it stop police from wanting to “increase the boots on the ground,” a measure he hinted Chief Bill Blair will soon announce.
“You can’t look at these numbers and say that’s it, we can put our feet up.”
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mayor Rob Ford met Tuesday, snubbing Premier Dalton McGuinty, to discuss Toronto’s recent gun problems and how to get tough on crime.
Criminology experts differed from the politicians on how to tackle crime.
“Everybody wants the cure rather than prevention,” said Anthony Doob, criminology professor at the University of Toronto. After 2005’s “summer of the gun,” experts suggested that long-term investments in education and public health could reduce crime, Doob said, but politicians instead made harsher laws to attempt a quick fix.
“I don’t think that decisions made on what we can do before sundown are going to serve us well,” he said. “That isn’t going to stop killings tomorrow.”
While the StatsCan report shows Toronto is a relatively safe place to live, other experts worry the recent outbreak of gun violence is a warning the city could be changing for the worst.
It’s a disturbing trend that signals the need for governments to re-examine the social and economic programs meant to give low-income citizens a hand up, analysts said.
“There has been an increase in concentration of violence taking place among young males under 30 years of age,” says Scot Wortley, an associate professor at the University of Toronto’s Centre of Criminology. “Many of the young male victims of homicide are from our poorest and most socially disadvantaged communities.”
Wortley said studies show Toronto’s middle-class communities have been shrinking and “our poor communities are not only growing but are becoming increasingly geographically and socially isolated — in other words, more like American ghettoes.”
In the U.S., these communities have been associated with high rates of crime and violence and, if the trend continues, a similar increase can be expected in Canada, he said.
University of Ottawa criminologist Irvin Waller said what’s needed is a combination of tougher policing and closely targeted social support programs in communities where crime and violence are growing. Outreach programs to help young people in troubled families stay in school, find jobs and take a constructive role in the community are crucial, he said.
Yet for Canada as a whole, police-reported crime last year reflected the lowest crime figures recorded since the Trudeau era. (There were, however, reported increases in sexual offences against children, impaired driving and most drug offences.) The decline continues a downward trend that began in the 1990s.
This trend continues to be at odds with public perceptions of growing crime, which criminologists say can be traced to growing awareness of crime and anxiety over random shootings of the kind recently seen in Toronto.
Top five safest cities
1. Guelph – 47.0
2. Quebec City – 52.2
3. Toronto – 54.9
4. Ottawa – 57.9
5. Barrie – 58.3
According to Statistics Canada, these cities have the lowest scores on the Total Crime Severity Index. The crime severity index is measured by assigning weights to different crimes based on sentences. Each offence is multiplied by the weight for that crime. All weighted offences are added together and divided by the corresponding population total, then standardized to 100.
Top five cities with most crime
1. Regina – 124.5
2. Saskatoon – 118.7
3. Thunder Bay – 107.3
4. Winnipeg – 107.2
5. Kelowna – 97.4