Understanding Official Crime Statistics
Any study of crime in society must begin with an analysis of crime statistics, which must be conducted carefully. Crime statistics are used to detect trends, make decisions about how to use resources, and establish the effectiveness of enforcement and prevention initiatives.
Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Survey
The Canadian Centre for Justice and Community Safety Statistics (CCJCSS), in co-operation with the policing community, collects police-reported crime statistics through the UCR Survey. The UCR Survey is mandatory for police agencies and was designed to produce an indicator on the incidents of crime in society and its characteristics. Police-reported crime statistics conform to a nationally approved set of common crime categories and definitions. Data is collected directly from police services and extracted from the police services records management systems.
Method of Counting
A criminal incident involves one or more related offences that are committed during a single criminal event and have been reported to police. Police services can report up to four violations for each incident, however, Statistics Canada generally uses the “UCR Aggregate Survey” scoring rules, whereby only the Most Serious Offence (MSO) occurring in an incident is counted.
There are a number of variables that can affect official crime statistics, including but not limited to:
The Level of Policing
The proportion of officers per population in an area influences how many crimes get reported and how many people get arrested. For example, if the number of police officers on patrol increased allowing more roadside safety checks, then there may be more charges for impaired driving and highway traffic offences. Therefore, this may not be an indicator of increased crime, rather it is a result of more policing.
Legal definition of crime may change over time
The law changes over time and this will influence crime statistics. One example of this is the legalization of cannabis in Canada in 2017.
The ‘Silent Figure’ of crime
Crime statistics are imprecise simply because they do not show all the crime that occurs because not all crimes get reported and counted by the police.
Impact of technology
Members of the public may be less inclined to go to the police to report a minor property offence; however, they may take the time to file a report online. Therefore, like the level of policing, this may not be an increase in crime, just an increase in the ease of reporting a crime.
Data Source
Information from the dashboard is sourced from Statistics Canada.