My last
post on policing resources in the major northern Ontario cities noted that
all five cities saw an increase in policing resources. In 2000, the largest
number of police offers adjusted for population was in Thunder Bay at 171.6
(per 100,000 of population), followed by Sault Ste Marie at 156, Timmins at
153.1, North Bay at 147.6 and finally Greater Sudbury at 143.1. By 2016, Thunder Bay was still first at 199.5
officers per 100,000 of population. It
was followed by Timmins at 196.2, Sault Ste. Marie at 176.7, Greater Sudbury at
160.7 and then North Bay at 152.6. Growth
in per capita policing resources was greatest in Timmins at 28 percent,
followed by Thunder Bay which saw a 16 percent increase. Next highest growth was Sault Ste. Marie at
13 percent, followed by Greater Sudbury and North Bay at 12 and 3 percent
respectively.
Of course,
the logical question that follows next is what was going on in crime rates over
the same period of time? It should be
noted that policing is much more complex in the early 21st century
dealing not only with traditional crimes but also with new crime areas such as
cyber and internet crime. As well,
social issues in general have been consuming more police resources as well as
new standards of accountability which entail more intensive use of policing
resources when dealing with incidents. Homicide investigation is especially resource intensive. Nonetheless,
a look at crime rates it is still a useful piece of information.
Traditional
measures of the crime rate such as criminal code incidents per 100,000 of
population or per police officer measure the volume of crime. One example is the homicide rate and past
evidence has found the homicide rate declining in northern Ontario in a
manner akin to other Canadian cities with the exception of a recent surge in
Thunder Bay. Another measure of crime is
the Crime Severity Index. The Crime
Severity Index combines both volume as well as takes into consideration the
seriousness of crimes by assigning each type of offense a seriousness weight and
generally serves as a complement to other measures.
The index has been set to 100 for Canada in 2006 and enables comparisons
of crime severity both at a point in time and over time.
Figure 1
plots the value of the Crime
Severity Index obtained from Statistics Canada for the five major northern
Ontario cities for the period 1998 to 2016.
The severity of crime differs across these five cities in any given year
but all cities have seen a decline over time.
The largest declines over time have been in Sudbury and North Bay at 36
and29 percent respectively. Next is
Thunder Bay with a 17 percent decline in crime severity between 1998 and 2016,
followed by Sault Ste. Marie at 16 percent and then Timmins at 15 percent. The good news is that while there are annual
ebbs and flows, crime rates over the long term are down in these major northern
Ontario cities.