CRIM 101 Term Paper - Crime Rates and Crime Trends PDF

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Crime Rates and Crime Trends in Canada: The Bigger PictureAmela Sejdic 301410665 CRIM 101 C100, Professor Vienna Lam Simon Fraser University March 20th, 2020Word Count: 1493Envision a world where we had no crime or violence and police would not exist. The criminal justice system would never have bee...

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Crime Rates and Crime Trends in Canada: The Bigger Picture

Amela Sejdic 301410665 CRIM 101 C100, Professor Vienna Lam Simon Fraser University March 20th, 2020

Word Count: 1493

RUNNING HEAD: CRIME RATES AND CRIME TRENDS

Envision a world where we had no crime or violence and police would not exist. The criminal justice system would never have been in place because there was nothing to prevent or punish. People are neither harmed nor locked up in a cell for hurting others. It sounds like a perfect world, right? Sadly, crime happens in every single part of the world with human populations. Murder, theft, aggravated assault and property crime are rampant, especially in urbanized and densely populated areas like Vancouver and Detroit. In response, we have police that record crimes that occur daily and ensure citizen safety. They arrest and charge criminals who will be sentenced under the law accordingly. In addition to police, criminologists do extensive research in the field of crime. They want to accurately know how much crime there is, and what the trends are statistically. In this paper, we will discuss the different methods criminologists use to measure crime rates, tool reliability, and whether these tools report crime rates and trends accurately. How does crime get reported in the first place and become considered a statistic? According to Morden and Palys, the process starts when a victim turns to the police and reports the crime. Also, police officers end up witnessing criminal activity by chance or actively searching for crime in certain areas. Either way, police officers gather evidence for crimes from either a victim or from witnessing crimes themselves at the scene. They must also record the crime by writing a report on the event, which is then processed and categorized afterward (as cited in Boyd, 2014). However, once it becomes a statistic, how do we also measure the crime 6

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rates and crime trends across Canada? There are a few methods that criminologists use to analyze crime rates and crime trends. These are the Uniform Crime Reporting Survey 2 (UCR2), victimization surveys, and the Crime Severity Index. The UCR2, an updated version of the previous UCR, is a tool that the police have been using in Canada since 2007. Like the previous UCR, UCR2 has scoring rules that are set nationally and managed by the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics (Morden, & Palys; as cited in Boyd, 2014). Both the UCR and UCR2 have the same data, but the UCR2 provides more detailed information on criminal incidents and allows the entry of four different offences for each criminal incident. Victimization surveys, on the other hand, are what researchers use to gain insight into the experiences of other people with the criminal justice system and crime. In other words, criminologists want to know whether people are victimized and how often they are victimized. The most common victimization survey used in Canada is the General Social Survey (GSS). Usually, the GSS is used to monitor the living conditions of Canadians. However, there is also a portion that focuses on victimization and is used to “gain a better understanding of how Canadians perceive crime, the justice system, and personal experiences of victimization” (Statistics Canada, 2014; as cited in Boyd, 2014, p. 80). They measure victimization in three categories: assault, sexual assault, and robbery. Besides that, there is the Crime Severity Index (CSI) created by Statistics Canada to analyze the severity of crimes that occur as well as the year-to-year occurrences of crime. Notably, the CSI includes both the “Overall CSI” (total 6

RUNNING HEAD: CRIME RATES AND CRIME TRENDS

volume of police-reported crimes), “Violent CSI” (total volume of police-reported violent crimes), and the “Non-violent CSI” (total volume of non-violent police-reported crimes). These three types of methods are the most cited and renowned tools that researchers use nationally. It is normal that when police report crimes more or not as frequently, the crime rates naturally seem to rise or decrease. In juxtaposition, that is not always the case. According to O’Grady and Lafleur, property crime rates increased in the cyberspace realm, e.g. counterfeiting, fraudulent e-commerce, et cetera. Motor thefts and break-and-enter incidences, in contrast, have been slowly declining (as cited in Boyd, 2014). How come there are declines? According to Farrell, Tilley, Tseloni and Mailley (2011), who have formed the term “security hypothesis,” the dramatic decrease in property crime is due to heightened levels of security and deterrence procedures that lower criminal motivation to commit crimes such as car alarms, parking lot CCTV, efficient locks et cetera. It is important to note that crimes that happen online may be more difficult to report or be noticed by police due to their less visible nature, so they are left out of statistics; thus, the crime rates drop as a result (Morden, & Palys; as cited in Boyd, 2014). Not everything is reported or recorded. Police-reported violent crime rates have increased between 2015-2017. After 2017, violent crime rates have slowly declined overall. Thompson notes, however, that violent crime rates do vary across different geographies, e.g. more violent crime trends northward and westward from central Canada. Different criminal justice systems, policies and possibly a 6

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“culture of violence” may have something to do with this phenomenon (as cited in Boyd, 2014). For example, “36 percent (223 of 611 killings) of homicides in Canada were committed with a firearm, and handguns accounted for 58 percent of all firearms used to commit homicide that year” (David, 2017; as cited in Boyd, 2014, p. 303). This information shows that violent crimes tend to be higher in urban areas. According to a UCR2 report, robbery crime rates have begun to increase since 2015 (Allen, 2018; as cited in Boyd, 2014). Does every tool show an accurate picture of crime rates and crime trends? Victimization surveys such as the GSS “uncover the dark figure of crime” – “the variation between the number of crimes that occur and the number of crimes that are actually reported to the police” (Thompson; as cited in Boyd, 2014, p. 290). The GSS also helps in understanding violent crime more than official data sources. However, it is made evident through the GSS that most sexual assaults are not reported to the police. Therefore, any visible increase does not suddenly signify that actual sexual assault rates have risen. People may suddenly have more opportunities to report their events to the police. Additionally, violent crimes are not always reported because people feel as if they are not salient enough or would bring dishonour to their families. Some individuals also feel that police would not consider reporting their case or they do not want to punish the perpetrator (Morden, & Palys). Victims also may have errors in recalling their events accurately and end up creating “false positives,” which inflate the rates of victimization (as cited in Boyd, 2014). 6

RUNNING HEAD: CRIME RATES AND CRIME TRENDS

Furthermore, there are also limitations with the UCR2 and CSI. With the CSI, crime is weighted by sentencing, and by the judges imposing the sentence. It means that the CSI can be subjective. Morden and Palys elucidate that the CSI data cannot show the exact length of sentences and data are skewed by repeat offenders, youth offenders and life sentences. UCR and UCR2 mostly have focused on reporting traditional crimes, despite a lot of crime moving onto the cyberspace realm. Therefore, they may not report every single crime and cause skewed increases or decreases. Also, any new changes to crime categories or the addition of new categories alter future statistics and cause difficulties in interpreting the data (as cited in Boyd, 2014). Overall, no tool is perfect in reflecting a perfect image of crime rates and crime trends. Despite the limitations, I believe that the UCR2 is the most reliable tool to report crime rates and crime trends in Canada. Because of the UCR2 allowing the entry of four different offences, there is a clearer understanding of multiple-event occurrences. We get a bigger list of different offences like arson, mischief, and aggravated assault. UCR2 has more detailed information that builds onto the previous UCR and shows that sexual assaults are rarely reported. In addition, we see the amount of increases or decreases in rates; for example, there are -10 decreases in homicide rates in Ontario compared to +30 increases in British Columbia in 2017 (Thompson; as cited in Boyd, 2014). Because of more detailed information, we see which crimes happen more and which don’t. The UCR2 is more quantitative than the GSS and is not as

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subjective as the CSI. Therefore, it is evident that the UCR2 takes the lead as the most reliable statistics tool to use in Canada. Despite popular belief that crime rates are increasing, we see in our statistics that they have been declining since the 1990s. Using the UCR2 and GSS statistic tools, we get an overall picture of crime rates and crime trends as well as levels of victimization that occur in Canada. We can see which types of crimes are more reported (robberies) and which aren’t (sexual assaults. Deterrence procedures and punitive sentencing for crimes help deter potential criminals, so then crime rates decrease. Overall, criminologists work diligently to show an accurate reflection of rime statistics in Canada.

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Allen, M. (2018). Police-reported crime statistics in Canada, 2017. Juristat, 38(1). Statistics Canada Catalogue no. 85-002-X. Retrieved March 19, 2020, from https:// www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2018001/article/54974-eng.htm Boyd, N. (2014). Understanding crime in Canada: An introduction to criminology (2nd ed.) [eBook edition]. Toronto: Emond Montgomery Publications. David, J.D. (2017). Homicide in Canada, 2016. Juristat, 37(1). Statistics Canada, Catalogue no. 85-002-X. Retrieved March 18, 2020, from https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/ pub/85002-x/2017001/article/54879-eng.htm Farrell, G., Tilley, N., Tseloni, A., & Mailley, J. (2011). The crime drop and the security hypothesis. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 48(2), 147 – 175. https://doi .org/10.1177/0022427810391 Morden, H.K., & Palys, T. Measuring crime. In Neil Boyd (Ed.), Understanding crime in Canada: An introduction to criminology (pp. 67-87). Toronto: Emond Montgomery Publications. O’Grady, B., & Lafleur, R. Property crime. In Neil Boyd (Ed.), Understanding crime in Canada: An introduction to criminology (pp. 335-347). Toronto: Emond Montgomery Publications. Thompson, S. Violent crime. In Neil Boyd (Ed.), Understanding crime in Canada: An introduction to criminology (pp. 287-308). Toronto: Emond Montgomery Publications.

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Statistics Canada. (2014). General Social Survey—Victimization (GSS): Definitions, data sources and methods. Retrieved March 18, 2020, from http:// www23.statcan.gc.ca/imdb/p2SV.pl?Function=getSurvey&SDDS=4504

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