Tag Archives: police

Homicide Rates in Canada: Statistics & Trends

By Mack D. Male ·

About a month ago I shared some statistics about Edmonton’s homicide rate. As an initial effort, I think I got my point across: the homicide rate in Edmonton over the last thirty years has been trending downward and is not that different from other large cities in Canada. I have since done some additional research on this subject and would like to share what I have learned.

The graphs below generally compare the ten largest census metropolitan areas in Canada. I have used the homicide rate (the number of homicides per 100,000 people in the CMA) to compare rather than the absolute number of homicides. Where appropriate, I have included the overall Canadian rate and the average of the ten largest CMAs. The data all comes from Statistics Canada (the 2010 information is here). You can click on any graph to see a larger version.

Here are the homicide rates over the last thirty years:

You can see a few spikes (for Ottawa-Gatineau and Winnipeg in particular) but overall the rates are all pretty similar.

Here are the highest recorded homicide rates:

Nearly every location has had spikes at one time or another. But a few places consistently record the highest homicide rates:

You can see that Winnipeg has recorded the highest homicide rate among large cities the most, followed by Ottawa-Gatineau. Edmonton has recorded the second highest homicide rate among large cities most often, followed by Vancouver.

Here are the average homicide rates over the last thirty years:

Half of the ten largest cities are below the Canadian average. As a result, the average for the ten largest cities isn’t that much higher than the Canadian average.

Here is Edmonton’s homicide rate compared against the overall rate in Canada and the average of the ten largest cities. You can see that is trending downward, despite spikes in 2005/2006:

Over the last thirty years, Edmonton has never recorded a homicide rate lower than the Canadian rate. Only three times has Edmonton’s homicide rate been lower than the average for the ten largest cities:

As homicide rates in Canada have generally been trending downward, I thought it would be useful to look at the rates by decade. Here are the average homicide rates by decade since 1981:

You can see that with the exception of Winnipeg, every location recorded a lower average homicide rate in the period 2001-2010 than they did in the period 1981-1990.

This graph shows the change a little more clearly:

Every location’s average rate decreased in the 1990s. Only three locations (Edmonton, London, and Winnipeg) have recorded increases since 2000, and only Winnipeg’s was enough to increase past 1990 levels.

What’s next?

Today, our city’s new violence reduction action plan was unveiled. You can read the whole thing in PDF here. The report concludes:

The problem of violence in society is complex and multi-faceted. It requires diligent, ongoing coordinated work across a number of agencies and organizations. This includes other orders of government, who have information and resources that will be required in order that solutions be comprehensive, and sustainable over the long-term.

The City and its key partners will continue their efforts to understand and address the root causes of violence and maintain order and safety in our community, keeping the livability of Edmonton among the best in Canada and the world.

I think understanding where we’re at is an important part of unraveling this mystery. Hopefully the information I have shared above will help in that regard. I look forward to the community conversations slated to take place this fall.

In a follow-up post, I’ll take a closer look at Edmonton’s homicide rate in the context of our demographics, economic situation, and other factors.

A better discussion about crime in Edmonton

By Mack D. Male ·

Today I launched a website at www.everybodyinthiscityisarmed.com that highlights the sensational media coverage we’ve seen lately about homicides in Edmonton in the hopes that we can change the discussion for the better. At 34 and counting, there’s no question that we’re in a bad situation and that if we don’t take action (we already have) we could be on track for a record number of murders this year. I don’t think that is going to happen however, and I wrote about why back in early July. I see the new website as a continuation of that effort. Hopefully it’s a call to action for local media, to go from simply recording what has happened and lamenting the growing number to digging into why it has happened and what we can do about it. I hope it’s also a call to action for Edmontonians, to demand more meaningful coverage of crime in our city.

Over the weekend I saw people like Andy tweeting a link to this Canoe.ca article. The discussion seemed to pick up again yesterday, with Jeff’s discussion in the headlines and more tweeting from people like Adam. Lots of people were mentioning Bill Pitt, a criminologist at Grant MacEwan University. I started copying down some of his quotes and made notes beside them, based on research I had already done. One thing led to another, and after a few hours I had registered the domain and put up the web page. I asked Jeff, Sally, and Adam for their thoughts and ideas, and via email they helped me improve it. Sally did the logo and header, while Jeff and Adam helped me tweak the content and layout.

The page started out very focused on Bill Pitt, for a few reasons. He has said some absolutely outlandish things, perhaps most of all the statement “everybody in this city is armed.” I thought that phrase captured the sensationalism very well, so that’s why I went with it for the domain. I also focused on Pitt because I realized that all of the quotes I had copied down were easily refuted. Over the course of the evening however, the page became a little less focused on Pitt specifically and more on local media coverage in general. As I said in an interview with iNews880’s Brittney LeBlanc today, “it’s not really about Bill Pitt, it’s about going beyond the quote, and the easy number, and the easy stat, and getting into a little more about why.”

I think there are so many questions we could be discussing to get a better understanding of the situation in which we find ourselves. I have included some of them on the website. Why has Montreal’s homicide rate declined so steadily since 1981 and what we can learn from that? How is 2011 similar to 2005/2006, the last time we had a spike in homicides? Why did our homicide rate drop so significantly after 1992? These are questions that take work to start to answer. It takes research, digging into the archives, talking to the right people. I started with the numbers, and I’ll do what I can to go beyond. I hope others will join me in that quest.

It will be obvious to longtime readers, but it’s worth mentioning that I rarely write about crime. I don’t mention it in my weekly notes, nor do I link to crime-related stories on Edmonton Etcetera. Crime is always on the front page of the newspaper and in the first few minutes of the newscast. It doesn’t need any more coverage. So why have I decided to get involved? Because I care about Edmonton. I think the sensational reporting has gotten out of hand, and I think the media’s thoughtfulness about the issue has simply not grown along with the body count.

Even if this outrageous spike – 33 homicides in the first 30 weeks of 2011 compared to 27 at year’s end in both 2009 and 2010 – hasn’t created a climate of fear on Edmonton’s streets, it is establishing an unseemly image of our city that is being broadcast and published the world over and will not be easily shed.

That’s what the Edmonton Journal published today, and they’re absolutely right. I’m not denying the numbers, but I am saying there’s a lot more to crime in Edmonton than 34 homicides in 2011.

I don’t really have any plans for the website, so I’d love to hear your suggestions. Karen asked about comments today, so I added Disqus to the page. How do you think it should evolve? Does it have life beyond today, or is it a single-serving website?

More importantly, what would make the discussion better for you? What’s missing from recent coverage about homicides in Edmonton? And what do you know that others need to know? Let’s have a better discussion about crime in our city.

Edmonton’s Homicide Rate: How much has changed in 30 years?

By Mack D. Male ·

Reading that we’ve had 28 murders so far this year in Edmonton is disheartening, as others have noted. And without a doubt something needs to be done to understand why this happening and what we can do to stop it. But has the picture really changed all that much from previous years?

Our homicide rate (the number of homicides per 100,000 people) currently sits at roughly 2.41. That compares to Winnipeg’s 2.08 (they have had 16 murders so far this year). If we extrapolate for the rest of the year, we’d finish with a homicide rate of roughly 4.82. That would indeed be our highest ever. However, a rate that high has only been experienced in large cities twice in the last 30 years:

Given that history, I would be shocked if we finished 2011 with a homicide rate above 4.8 (which would equate to 56 murders).

Here’s the average homicide rate for each of those cities:

And here’s what the rate looks like from year to year (it appears Montréal has experienced the most steady decline – we should find out what they did):

As for the title of Murder Capital of Canada – that distinction clearly goes to Winnipeg. It has led large cities in murders more in the last 30 years than any other:

In recent years, it has generally been Winnipeg #1 and Edmonton #2, or vice versa.

It sounds bad: “we’ve had more murders in the first six months of 2011 than we did all of last year”. That’s the kind of statement that will spur us into action. But I don’t think the situation is really all that different from previous years.

The other negative side effect of all of this is the knock on Edmonton’s image throughout Canada and around the world. Countless stories have been written about our homicide rate. I was interviewed by CTV about this today. I said that the words ‘homicide’ and ‘murder’ have been mentioned by Edmontonians on Twitter about 1200 times in the last month or so. What I didn’t get to do in the interview was compare that to previous years:

The absolute number of mentions is higher this year than it was in the last two years, but so is the total number of tweets overall. So I normalized the data. If the same number of tweets had been posted in June 2009 as were posted in June 2011, the words ‘homicide’ and ‘murder’ would have been mentioned more two years ago than today. All this to say: Edmontonians are talking about this topic, but perhaps not more than they have in the past. I would guess that other Canadians are talking about our homicide rate more than is normal, however.

UPDATE (8/5/2011): I updated the second paragraph to better reflect the way Statistics Canada calculates homicide rates, so that the numbers better align with the rest of the post. I had originally stated that extrapolating for the rest of 2011 would result in a homicide rate above 5.0, when it should have been 4.8. My argument remains the same – statistically speaking, that is very unlikely.

Edmonton Sun violates the EPS Crime Map Terms of Use

By Mack D. Male ·

Back in July, the Edmonton Police Service launched its Neighbourhood Crime Mapping site. Like most people I was quite enthusiastic about the site, until I read the terms of use and realized how restrictive they were. Basically you can look at the numbers, but you can’t do anything with them (such as publish them on a blog). The Crime Mapping site is not open data. I emailed back and forth with the EPS, and was told that they wouldn’t be changing the terms of use. And, they haven’t.

That didn’t stop the Edmonton Sun, however. They apparently ignored the terms of use altogether, and published an article on December 20th summarizing a number of statistics from the website:

Some of Edmonton’s roughest neighbourhoods faced markedly fewer crimes in 2009, according to police statistics.

The statistics came through a new crime mapping system launched by Edmonton police last summer.

I had asked for permission to do something similar and was turned down. After reading the Sun article, I emailed the EPS to find out if the terms of use had been changed (despite the text on the website staying the same). Here’s what Acting S/Sgt. John Warden wrote back:

The Edmonton Sun did not have the EPS’ permission to use the information from the Crime Mapping website and the EPS is dealing directly with the Edmonton Sun in relation to this.

I emailed back a couple of follow-up questions, but have not yet received a response. The Edmonton Sun article is still active on the website, so I’m not exactly sure what “dealing directly with the Edmonton Sun” means.

I’m annoyed by this, obviously. Was it an honest mistake? Maybe. Is it a case of a large media organization getting off the hook? Maybe. Will it happen again? Probably. No one reads the fine print, we all know that.

I don’t think the current terms of use is appropriate, and I strongly urge the Edmonton Police Service to change it.

EPS responds to my query about the Crime Mapping terms of use

By Mack D. Male ·

Last week I posted about the new Crime Mapping site launched by the Edmonton Police Service (EPS). One of my criticisms of the site was the very restrictive terms of use or disclaimer that you must agree to before you can use the site. In particular:

While it is acceptable to pass the website link on to others in your community, you will not share the information found on the website with others other than with members of the Edmonton Police Service or other law enforcement agencies; and

You will only use this website and the information in it so you can inform yourself of, and participate in, this community policing initiative;

This is problematic because it effectively means that you can’t do anything with the data that EPS has now made available. You can look at it using their site, but you can’t then blog about that data, or add it to a PowerPoint presentation.

I emailed a request for clarification and received a response from Amit Sansanwal, Criminal Statistics Coordinator at EPS. I asked for and was granted permission (by their legal department) to publish his response:

The EPS views the Neighbourhood Crime Mapping website as a valuable addition to our community policing initiative.

The EPS, however, is of the view that this tool can only be effective and achieve its community policing objectives if people seeking the information visit the Neighbourhood Crime Mapping website directly themselves.

By visiting the website, hopeful participants in this EPS community policing initiative can learn about what kind of information is available to them (e.g. crime prevention and partnership programs) and how it fits within this program.

We appreciate your interest in this program and hope that you tell others about the existence of the Neighbourhood Crime Mapping website.

In a later email, Amit pointed out that the current preferred way to get EPS statistics is through Statistics Canada.

The crux of their position, if I understand it correctly, is that they don’t want people looking for crime statistics to come across an inaccurate or malicious source. That seems reasonable. The problem is that such a position assumes people are actively seeking the information. By opening up access to the data and allowing others to make use of it, they can potentially reach far more Edmontonians, not to mention the benefits that could come from mashups or other data visualizations. Furthermore, it seems as though they just want to force people to use the Crime Mapping site so that they can promote additional programs to users.

The Crime Mapping site is fun to look at, but I would argue its utility is restricted by the current terms of use. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like that’ll be changing any time soon.

Edmonton Police Service (EPS) Crime Mapping tool now online

By Mack D. Male ·

Back in June we learned that the Edmonton Police Service was planning to launch a new website that would enable citizens to find crime statistics for their neighbourhoods. This afternoon, the EPS Crime Mapping tool went online, and it does just that. You can search for stats on eight types of crimes in any neighbourhood across any time period since 2007. From the press release:

The new crime mapping tool will provide members and citizens with a better understanding of what is going on the neighbourhoods they work and live in.

I’ve been playing with the site today, and I like it. There are pros and cons, however.

How It Works

The first step is to agree to the disclaimer – more on that in a minute. Next, you pick the crimes you want statistics for. The eight types include assault, break and enter, homicide, robbery, sexual assaults, theft from vehicle, theft of vehicle, and theft over $5000. Third, you pick the neighbourhood – there are 357 listed in the system. Finally, you select the time period. There are some quick selections such as yesterday or the last 30 days, or you can enter any two dates. Click “Show Crimes” and your neighbourhood appears on the map, covered in colored dots to represent the reported crimes. Here’s what Oliver looks like for the last 30 days with all crime types selected:

There’s also a “View Statistics” tab above the map that will show you a table for the last three years broken down by month, with a graph below that.

The Good

There are some really good things about this site. First and foremost, the data is excellent. I’m glad that they included everything up-front, instead of doing a test release or something to start. Second, it’s built using Google Maps. This is a big win for EPS – it’s a stable technology that Google is continually making better, and I would guess that most Edmontonians are familiar with it. Third, it’s fast. Almost as soon as you click the button, your stats appear.

The Bad

There are two things about the site that I don’t like. First is the disclaimer – it’s too restrictive. These two points in particular are problematic:

While it is acceptable to pass the website link on to others in your community, you will not share the information found on the website with others other than with members of the Edmonton Police Service or other law enforcement agencies; and

You will only use this website and the information in it so you can inform yourself of, and participate in, this community policing initiative;

That effectively means you can’t do anything with the data. This is in direct contrast with what the press release would lead you to believe:

Providing our citizens with the real picture of neighbourhood crime is the first step in engaging them to do something about it. Members of the public will be better equipped with knowledge to work collaboratively with the EPS to reduce and prevent crime.

What’s the point of making the data available if you can’t do anything with it? Why can’t I blog about the crime stats in a particular neighbourhood? Or mash the crime stats up with some other data? I challenge the notion that simply being able to see the dots on a map equips me to do something about crime in my neighbourhood.

I’ve emailed the feedback address listed on the site asking about this, but I haven’t yet received a response.

The second bad thing about the site is that while it does make data available, it does so in an opaque and closed way. If Edmonton is going to become an open city (with respect to data), sites like the crime mapping tool need to provide information for multiple audiences. One is the average citizen who is happy to click around on the map. Another increasingly important audience is the creative professional who wants to do something with the data, and needs it in a machine-readable format such as a CSV or XML file.

The Undocumented API

The first thing I did after testing the site with my neighbourhood was poke around for clues about where the data comes from. It didn’t take long to realize that there’s a JSON web service behind the application. You can access it here. It’s probably not meant for public consumption, but it’s there and it works. I was able to throw some code together in about 30 minutes to get data out of the service. While it would still be good to have static data files available, the API largely negates the con I mentioned above. As it is unofficial however, who knows if it will remain active and working, so enjoy it while you can.

Final Thoughts

Overall I think the Crime Mapping tool is excellent. We need more applications and services like this, though with less restrictive terms/licensing and easier-to-access data. Kudos to EPS for building this, and let’s hope they improve it.

UPDATE: There are more details in this article. For instance, the tool apparently cost $20,000 to build, and is automatically updated each morning.

Policing Edmonton on a Segway

By Mack D. Male ·

Post ImageThe Edmonton Police Service is hardly the most technologically savvy group in the city (I mean just look at their website) but they are now launching a pilot program to “test a fascinating new piece of technology.” Yes, while the rest of the world considers the Segway old news, EPS is grinning from ear to ear (careful, link is for a Word file…they don’t even have HTML press releases):

In an effort to explore new and innovative methods of community-policing, the EPS is testing this equipment to evaluate its usefulness within Edmonton. Citizens can expect to see EPS officers patrolling on Segways at the Rexall Grand Prix of Edmonton, Capital Ex, West Edmonton Mall, and other special events.

The two “vehicles” that Segway donated to EPS for the pilot project are similar to commercially available models but also have emergency lights and a siren. The press release notes that “an officer on a Segway will stand 8 inches above the rest of the crowd and will be able to respond to emergencies in a fraction of the time it would take them on foot.” You don’t say!

All joking aside, I think this is good news for Edmontonians. Segways likely won’t be filling up the sidewalks anytime soon, but they are excellent for specific verticals such as law enforcement. Apparently police in Vancouver, Toronto, and Windsor have also started testing Segways.

Read: EPS Website