Social media has a lot to say about increasing crime levels in Canada. All those stories have probably made you curious about what’s actually behind these levels, since the national totals reveal far more than what people see on the street. Let’s look at the 2024 crime statistics report and figure out the truth.
But before we get into it, just remember that these are the reported numbers we’re talking about. These could be different from the popular perception of our area & trends on social media.
Key takeaways
Here’s what you’ll learn:
- The things the Crime Severity Index (CSI) actually measures
- How some crimes carry more “weight” than others
- What the system counts & leaves out
- The important changes in 2024 across Canada
How the crime severity index works
The CSI looks at how much crime happens in Canada & how often. It also details how serious these crimes are, using data that police forces across the country send to Statistics Canada. The organization turns this data into a single score.
What does the score stand for? It’s a combination of the amount of crime & weight of each offence. The higher the CSI score, the more severe the overall crime in this area. At least statistically speaking.
The weighting behind “severity”
All crime is bad. But some are worse than others. The CSI uses average court sentences to work out how serious each sort of crime is, so a city that has 10 murders a year is going to score worse than a city that has 100 bike thefts a year.
In other words, one homicide may have the same impact on a city’s CSI as hundreds of minor thefts. Statistics Canada reviews the weights of each crime every few years. It does so to keep up with sentencing changes & ensure it’s giving a fair interpretation of the law.
However, the CSI only includes crimes that the police actually know about. That is, the ones that are reported. Unreported incidents are invisible to the index, and the gap between the number of crimes & reported crimes can be quite large.
National surveys discovered that only one-third of all crimes are actually reported to the police. It’s worse for sexual assaults. The number of reported sexual assaults is in single digits, compared to the estimated number of actual sexual assaults.
The national picture
The latest figures come from 2024, and they found that CSI dropped by approximately 4% across the whole of Canada. The overall crime rate in Canada was just shy of 5,700 incidents per 100,000.
It was the first noticeable decline in several years. The number of non-violent crimes fell by around 6% and this was the largest drop of all crimes. Violent offences declined by approximately 1%.
Police officers logged a smaller number of break-ins & car thefts. Break-ins fell by a double-digit percentage, while thefts of items worth less than $5,000 also fell.
The number of property crimes also fell, even though you might still see home invasion videos circulating on social media. Even the rate of serious offences, including robbery & attempted murder, declined.
Do you think 2025 will show another reduction in crime statistics?
Regional facts from 2024
The picture changes a lot depending on where you look. Alberta’s CSI slipped by almost 9%, while British Columbia saw one of the sharpest falls in non-violent crime.
Up north, the Northwest Territories increased in overall severity, even as Nunavut’s totals inched down.
Most of these differences often come down to things like population size & policing resources. There’s also the question of how many serious cases happen in a small area.
The role of age in the numbers
In terms of who’s getting charged, crime tends to rise in the teenage years & peaks around the late teens or early twenties. It then drops off as people get older.
Such a pattern has been this way for a while, and this age curve explains why communities with more young adults usually see higher offence rates.
There are also repeat offences. Federal tracking shows that roughly one in four people released from prison are convicted again within two years. Roughly half of those new cases involve non-violent crimes.
Thankfully, the good news is that the numbers have been declining over time. Fewer people are going back through the system compared to past decades.
Laws and sentencing that change the counts
When laws shift, so do the statistics. Cannabis was legalized in 2018 & this led to a drop in cannabis-related charges. Those offences used to make up a good chunk of the total, but now, they barely register. Sentencing rules can also affect the “weights” used in the CSI.
Some crimes are newer to the system, like fraud & online scams. These are now major parts of police work. Extortion often includes online threats, and crimes involving this have increased quite a bit over the last decade. But they slightly reduced this year.
What the CSI does with population
The CSI adjusts all of the numbers for population, so the rates make sense even when comparing small towns & big cities.
It also uses census data to keep everything on the same scale. As such, this is why a rise or fall in one province can be compared fairly to another, since it’s all standardized per 100,000 residents.
What updates and policing practices can change
Changes in police reporting & staffing can both affect the data. Even community awareness can affect it. A city that runs a campaign encouraging people to report hate crimes or fraud may lead to numbers going up, even when the underlying problem hasn’t changed.
The CSI has to be updated regularly as a result. The same rules apply across the country to keep things consistent.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
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