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Canada’s crime rate narrowing gap with U.S., StatCan report finds
A new Statistics Canada report comparing crime trends in Canada and the U.S. over the last 25 years reveals that while the U.S. still records higher levels of violent crime and homicide, the gap between the two countries has steadily narrowed.
www.ctvnews.ca
A new Statistics Canada report comparing crime trends in Canada and the U.S. over the last 25 years reveals that while the U.S. still records higher levels of violent crime and homicide, the gap between the two countries has steadily narrowed.
Published Wednesday, the report highlights opposite trajectories: declining violent crime in the U.S. and modest increases in Canada.
In 2023, Canada’s police-reported violent crime rate stood at 252 incidents per 100,000 people, compared to 334 in the U.S. – a 33 per cent difference. Fifteen years ago, the gap was 77 per cent.
The U.S. saw a 37 per cent drop in violent crime between 1998 and 2023, while Canada experienced a nine per cent rise since 2009, when reporting methods shifted from victim-based to incident-based counts.
The report primarily attributes the rise in Canada to major assaults, which include attempted murders and both level 2 and level 3 assaults. Level 2 covers assault with a deadly weapon or causing bodily harm assaults, while level 3 is also known as aggravated assault.
In 2023, level 2 assaults accounted for 94 per cent of all major incidents and occurred 1.6 times more frequently than a decade earlier.
But according to criminologist Laura Huey, these changes aren’t happening in isolation, but reflect the impact of public policy decisions and policing trends over the past decade.
In an interview with CTVNews.ca, Huey cites a 2012 meeting between the federal and provincial officials as a turning point. At the time, governments viewed policing as a growing financial burden rather than an expanding public safety need.
“You can see that some of the changes in violent crime map onto public policy by the federal government and provincial governments, for that matter,” Huey said.
Although a few regions made modest changes, Huey noted that most have worked to maintain tight budgets, embracing the view that policing costs are too high. She adds that, as a result, police staffing levels have largely remained stagnant or even declined across much of the country.
At the same time, she changes to Canada’s bail system have made it easier for accused individuals to be released pretrial. These combined factors have created, in her words, “a space in which it’s easier to work (in Canada) as a criminal.”
Meanwhile, the U.S. major assault rate has fallen by nearly 27 per cent since the late 1990s. Robbery rates have also dropped steeply in the U.S. — 60 per cent since 1998 — helping close the historical crime gap.
In Canada, there were 23,561 robberies reported in Canada in 2023, representing a rate of 59 incidents per 100,000 population. Over the 25-year period, robbery rates in Canada have fallen down 46 per cent from 1998 to 2023.
Firearms continue to mark a key distinction. In 2023, 36 per cent of robberies in the U.S. involved a gun, compared to 13 per cent in Canada.
