Crime in Canada

I have been very busy doing a thorough rewrite and update of The Trouble With Canada (1990). It will be published by Key Porter Books, Toronto, in mid-2010, as The Trouble With Canada ... Still

Below is a bit of information from the disturbing chapter on Canada's Criminal Justice system that gives us a picture of Canada's place in the world of crime.

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         First, a blunt fact that may surprise: Canada has one of the highest 'reported crime" rates in the developed world, with a medium incarceration rate, and a low number of police personnel per capita. Most of these are minor and property crimes. About 12-13% are violent crimes. 

         The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) compiles an exhaustive “Survey of Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems.” The Tenth Survey is the most recent, covering police-reported crimes in 2005-2006. Below is a Table of some of the countries that responded to the survey with their “Grand Total of Recorded Crimes.” These are rates of police-reported crimes, not convictions.

         Crime rates are obviously a function of good policing and of reporting by victims, but if we assume these things are more or less on par in developed nations, it looks like there is trouble with Canada in the crime department.

In 2006, on this scale, Canada was a far more crime-ridden country than our closest neighbour, though our tally has been declining for a while (along with overall declines in most other Western nations), down from the peak of over 10,300 in 1992. Canada’s rate continued to decline in 2007, which I show below (data for other nations not available for 2007). Critics of the UN report say that the USA does not report a lot of the crimes that we do, and so on. It's impossible to get to the bottom of these criticisms. But even if we allow for that sort of slippage, underreporting, etc., the picture holds, and the UN report is considered a kind of gold standard on international crime reporting.

This is a list of some of the countries we are familiar with that gives an idea of the range of reported crime

Nation                 Reported Crimes per 100,000 population, 2006

Sweden                      13,493

England & Wales        10,399

New Zealand              10,245

Canada                        8,317        (6,984 for 2007)

Scotland                       8,200

Germany                      7,628

Netherlands                 7,439

Italy                             4,715

Switzerland                  3,865

United States              3,764

Argentina                     3,128

Spain                            2,397

Greece                          2,167

Japan                            1,602

Costa Rica                     1,231

Singapore                         900

India                                 443

  * Note: 3,282,193 Canadians have a criminal record, and 377,477 of them (about 12%) have been granted a pardon – almost 25,000 in 2007-8. A “pardon” means their record has been sealed.

It is a matter of great interest to this author that most of the explanations for crime offered by Canada's own Corrections and Parole systems (my chapter is quite critical of Canada's "philosophy" on crime) are of the deterministic sort arguing that the causes of crime are social, economic, etc.

The inevitable thrust of this is that the criminal is not responsible for his or her crime. However, the issuing of official pardons by the state suggests that we do not in fact believe our own crime philosophy (or that our justice authorities are very confused and in contradiction with themselves), because there is no reason for a pardon if the crime could not be helped.

                Canada’s national figures for 2006 for ‘All Incidents” of crime per 100,000 population were as follows, by province and territory (regions above the national average are in bold).  Readers will note that some of these Canadian regional rates are literally “off the scale” compared to other nations in the world (above). The chapter reveals much detail on the scandal of aboriginal crime rates in Canada.

                                           All Incidents of Reported Crime, per 100,000 (2006)

All

Can.         NL      P.E.I      NS       N.B        Que.     Ont.    Man.      Sask.      Alta.        B.C.      Y.T.     

 8,269  6,571   7,468   8,698    6,781    6,626   6,251  12,325   15,276   10,336   12,564   22,197 

 N.W.T         NvT

44,074      32,831

 (2006 crime statistics for the provinces and territories are as reported by Statistics Canada, last updated: 28 February 2007)

Note: the difference between Canada’s total here, and in the UN report, above, may be due to timing.

Comments

[SUZANNE]

I wonder if these statistics are comparable. Some countries may have more laws than others. Criminal codes may differ on a number of issues.

I don't know if you can really get a picture of crime from these statistics.

[Winston]

Can't wait to buy and read the book.

[Geoff]

When I first read The Trouble With Canada about 2 years ago, I could relate to it because I was alive during the time the book detailed Canada's slide into socialism from the 1960s. I just wonder if it will mean as much to younger people, who don't have that experience. Of course even between the 1980s and 2000s there is probably a detectable difference, but is it enough? I hope the new book can speak to the younger generation somehow.

A question: the title of the new book seems to assume that you should have already read the old book, or already know of the problems. Am I right?