Crime Trends in Canada PDF

​ Midterms: trends; crime rates and crime trends There is no one explanation for crime; anything that can be politically decided that is crime; -​ We need multiple theories to cover certain kinds of crime -​ Also need different methods CHAPTER 2- MEASURING CRIME -​ In canada we rely o...

​ Midterms: trends; crime rates and crime trends There is no one explanation for crime; anything that can be politically decided that is crime; -​ We need multiple theories to cover certain kinds of crime -​ Also need different methods CHAPTER 2- MEASURING CRIME -​ In canada we rely on the Canadian centre for justice statistics -​ Took a while to build this standardised system: UCR system UCR -​ Police have to send out the summaries of crimes once a month -​ The crimes that police are aware of and know they have been committed. Raises a gap: what about the crimes they don't know about -​ Other gaps: how these crimes get counted -​ Reducing things to numbers means you are reducing the complexity of information. -​ When it comes to measuring crime, if they put somebody under arrest it is likely that there are multiple charges and crimes committed; the challenge is do you count all of those crimes, what are the consequences of that. Going to shift numbers: -​ SO they decided on the MSO: only counting the most serious offence/crime. -​ Ranked based on the amount of sentencing and punishments. MSO- Consequences of following these rules. -​ When following these rules, then you end up dropping the less serious crimes -​ Inflating serious crimes as the percentage of the total -​ You're not recording qualitative data about what actually happened. KNOW: how the ucr works: police having to report crimes coming to their attention -​ If they follow the MSO rule: what happens. Crime rate: -​ Total number of police reported crime X 100,000 then divide it by the population size. -​ Can compare results over time, and variation from place to place. -​ Crime rate doesn't tell us the severity of the crime Police-reported crime severity index: -​ Used to find out changes in crime severity. Kelowna; -​ No longer the most crime ridden city in canada. Have a sense of the overall trend in canada when it comes to crime rate  -​ Crime rate and Csi graphs are following a similar pattern -​ Broad trend: steady increase in crime rate, peaking in the early 90s. -​ THEN a decline happens -​ Overall trend; crime went up, peaked in early 90s, declined until around 2014, and has been up and down without a clear trend ever since. Other thing affecting crime rate: -​ What the police are up to: the types of crimes the police are recording. These numbers come from the police. They can only work with what's given to them too. -​ People's willingness to report crime. -​ Some crimes are more reliable indicators than others: -​ Homicide and murder; people often steadily report this. What causes changes in the crime rate? -​ Maybe theres more or less crimes but we can't assume that -​ Crime rate tells you a lot about other things going on: legal changes, policing practices, police priorities. Systemic inequality example: uncovered through investigative journaling -​ Percentage of sexual assault cases deemed to be “unfounded”- not having enough to consider it a crime across canada. -​ Most big cities have unfounded rates of 10% -​ Smaller towns had percentages in the 30% -​ Explanation: how police handle sexual assault reports and allegations vary VOYEURISM CASE: 2021 -​ In the commons building; someone is filming a girl in the next stall under the divider. -​ Student confronted the guy in the next stall, called friends, and waited for him. Then I went to SVPRO on campus. -​ RCMP got involved, took the report, some follow up after, police talked to the guy and they didn't seem concerned, she went back to SVPRO and they disagreed. So more follow up happened. -​ In the end; police did their job and got a conviction because she took notes on everything, and got the media involved, so they stepped up. WHEN CRIME GETS POLITICAL: -​ When there is political pressure, government and police forces find ways to manipulate and adjust the numbers. -​ Reporting and investigating less crimes -any time that crime stats get political and politicians connect police officers career outcomes- people will find ways to make the numbers go up or down as desired. They will break the rules in one way or another. GOODHART'S LAW  -​ Anytime a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. Official statistics UCR: -​ Similar pattern for sexual assault cases. -​ Huge uptake on sexual assault in the 1980’s -​ Why? Growing awareness of sexual assault as a problem, feminine activism. -​ Huge legal and cultural changes: definitions of sexual assault was expanded. You don't need so many requirements to prove. -​ Another huge explosion in 2015 due to the ME TOO movement. -​ Broadly speaking, people are more willing to report abuse in the workplace and police are under more pressure to take things seriously.