Crime Rate in Canada - 1962-2009

On Thursday I wrote about Canada's decreasing crime rate, although I only had data going back to 1999 to demonstrate this trend. I have since located a 1998 copy of the Juristat Crime Statistics in Canada that has additional data going back to 1962 on page 15. I have graphed them below.

You will notice a break in the detailed crime data between the years 1998 & 1999. As I am retrieving this data from two different sources, it is clear that several items that used to be classified as 'other crime' have been reclassified into 'violent' or 'property' crime. I could make some guesses based on what is not specifically mentioned in the old report (see page 16) compared to Table 2 in the new data; the only one I can confirm, because it is listed in both reports, is that 'arson' has been reclassified as a property crime. I have left the total crime as a contiguous curve as that would be the same in both reports.

It is clear from this data that the crime rate in Canada peaked around 1991, and has been declining since. I am still unable to locate Stockwell Day's August 3^rd unreported crime statistics to report on.

Elmer Fudd get's his Wabbit

Bill C-391 needs Elmer Fudd as it's mascot. He is a man with real family values, and a strong proponent of a long gun in every household.

Comparing Firearm related Homicides rates between Canada and the United States

Canada and the United States have significantly different homicide rates: In 2008 it was 1.83 per 100,000 population in Canada, and 5.4 in the U.S. We can find the breakdown by method for Canada at Statistics Canada, and for the U.S. at the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program.

Country	Homicide Rate	percent knife	knife rate	percent firearm	firearm rate
Canada	1.83	32.7%	0.6	32.7%	0.6
United States	5.4	13.4%	0.72	67.1%	3.62

There is a very similar likelihood of being murdered by knife in the two countries, but you are six times more likely to be murdered by gun in the United States. There are many differences between our two societies, including gun control legislation. It is not a large stretch of the imagination to assume that the more lax gun laws in the United States contribute to this disparity.

In both countries handguns contribute to a larger percentage of these homicides. These can be found from Statistics Canada, and the FBI's UCR.

Country	Rate	Handgun		Long Gun
		Percent	Rate	Percent	Rate
Canada	0.6	60.5%	0.36	17.0%	0.1
United States	3.62	71.37%	2.59	8.63%	0.31
Ratio US:Canada		7.14		3.07

You are 7.14 times as likely to be shot with a handgun in the U.S. as in Canada, and 3.07 times as likely with a long gun. Does our gun control legislation have a role to play? I believe the situation is very complex, but I don't think we can ignore the effect of that legislation. In an earlier blog entry I overlaid various gun control measures with our homicide rate.

Canada's decreasing crime rate

It is clear that both violent crime and property crime have been decreasing for the past decade or more. There was a slight increase in other crimes until 2004 but that has since been decreasing as well. Unfortunately I can't find Stockwell Day's unreported crime statistics to add to my table, perhaps he could crayon it in for us.

Violent crime is homicide, assault, sexual assault, abduction, kidnapping, extortion, harassment, threats, unlawful pointing or discharge of a firearm, robbery, etc. Property crimes are break & enter, theft, possession of stolen property, fraud, mischief, arson, etc. Other crimes include counterfeiting, weapons violations, child pornography, prostitution, disturbing the peace, administration of justice violations, etc. You can find the details for the past two years in the Police-reported crime for selected offences.

Homicide rate by firearm in Canada

In my last post on homicide rates in Canada with the various gun legislations I received some feedback that the total homicide rate might be misleading as firearms only account for around 30% of overall homicides. I decided to repeat the exercise, but only look at firearm related homicides. It was challenging as this information is not as readily available. I was able to find most of the information for recent years in the charts from Statistics Canada and tables from Juristat in 1995 (page 6) and 1997 (page 7). I noticed some very slight discrepancies in 1992-3 but they were small enough not to notice in the graph. I also had to complete the tables for homicide rate by firearm in 2007-8 which is within 1%, and 1974-6 which is within 2%. Unfortunately I could not find enough data to go back to 1961 like the previous exercise.

To clarify the effect of the Long Gun Registry, I have indicated it's implementation period by the red hatched area, the red line is still when it became mandatory.

Homicide rate in Canada

Homicide rates have been tracked by Statistics Canada since at least 1961. Firearms have been involved in about 30% of all homicides over the past decade. The following graph shows the homicide rate for the years 1961-2008, and the various gun legislations are overlaid. Have these legislations played a role in the decreases observed after they have been implemented?

The Long Gun Registry component of bill C-68 was implemented in 2001 and became mandatory on January 1, 2003. Note from my previous blog entry that long gun homicides did decrease after this time, but overall homicides and handgun homicides in particular increased.

Rise or fall in gun crime in Canada?

The Long Gun Registry debate continues in this country, with an important vote in the House of Commons only a week away. I have my own doubts about the effectiveness of the registry, and still question the less than $4 million/year figure that was identified on page 57 of the RCMP report to operate it. Unfortunately the arguments against it seem to be often weak, or even totally incorrect. Many people argue that gun crime has increased since the registry has been implemented. They often base that allegation on homicides in the country, but fail to mention that increased rate is for handguns and not long guns. The registry in question is about long guns, and that rate has actually decrased since it was implemented in 2001 and became mandatory on January 1, 2003.

I looked at the data published by Statistics Canada on the homicides for the years 1998-2008 (2009 data should be published in a couple of months), as broken down by method. I looked at the average for the years 1998-2002 (before the registry became mandatory), and 2003-2008 (after). Murder by handgun did increase from and annual average of 94.8 to 118.17 but long guns did the exact opposite and decreased from 50.6 to 38.5.

Overall firearm related homicides over the past decade have increased slightly, there has been an increase in handgun related homicides and a decrease in long gun related homicides. This may not spell success for the Long Gun Registry, but it certainly does not indicate any failure.

Comparison between Gun Ownership and Homicide

Welcome to ?Impact's first blog entry. ?Impact means Questionable Impact, this blog is mostly about political issues in Canada. I have been contributing to the Globe & Mail comments section for many months but decided that the limited format there does not allow me to fully express my views. This first entry will be simple, and relates to the firearms debate that is taking place in Canada. I will start with a comparison between Gun Ownership in Canada and Homicide rate (both for 2008 and the years 2000-2008). I am only looking at provinces where the number of homicides are greater than 15 as the rates in the smaller provinces can be greatly skewed by just 1 or 2 homicides.

There seems to be a rough correlation between the two statistics, with the exception of Saskatchewan. I will let the reader draw their own conclusions.

Gun ownership from the RCMP
Homicide rate from: Statistics Canada
Historical homicide rate from Statistics Canada