Stephen Jones

What's with the murder rate in Toronto? Is it typical of Canada?

Steve

Jerseygirl

Read somewhere it's expected to reach 70 this year. Most of it seems to be drug related...now there's a surprise.

PMM

Hi

Well there have been 74 homicides so far in 2007, 1.8 per 100K population, compared to Winnipeg tops in Canada at 4.6/100K and New Orleans at 56/100K. London is 2.1/100K (2005)

Jerseygirl

Yeah I forgot...there have been 3 this weekend.

Alberta_Rose

This is what I think of as a "light-the-blue-touch-paper-and-stand-well-back" type of thread ... Is it typical of Canada?


Here's a link to StatsCanada that may be of interest:

http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepu...XIE2007008.pdf

As has been said, the majority of homicides appear to be linked to gangs and/or drugs. It also appears to me that there is less in the way of random acts of violence here compared to UK cities, but that might be just my impression.....

MarkG

It's also worth remembering that Britain's murder rate is something of an anomaly in Western nations; last time I looked, most mainland European nations had murder rates 2-3x as high as Britain, but few people are worried about going there.

dbd33

I don't think murder rates are much help because people tend to get murdered by people they know; if you're married to an abuser that abuser is as likely to kill you in Toronto as in London, if you're in the Crips the Bloods are likely to get you here or there. If the concern is risk, then violent crime less than murder would be more useful to compare, if only there were useful figures from different countries.

What we can say is that if you're affluent you're very likely to be safe in Toronto, just as you would be in London.

Ben W Bell

Toronto has had 77 homicides so far this year according to The Star, which is still a lot lower than many cities of its size. Most seem to be drug or gang related.

Zoe Bell

Despite hearing about shootings in Toronto on the news. I feel Very safe hear. Most of the problems do seem to be gang related.
l am quite a streetwise person, I realise there are areas to avoid but I felt no Concerns about walking home on my own from a recent event that didn't finish until 1 am

dingbat

I would never do that in Downtown Vancouver. Interesting.

dbd33

I'm cautious about that in downtown Toronto. When the OH was at George Brown College it was maybe five blocks from our office but, in order to meet without having to be harrassed (in daylight) or scared (after dark) whoever was walking would have to go three blocks west and then three blocks east again. My daughter works on one of the worst blocks downtown and, after a visit to Vancouver, rated it about the same, she said that from a nursing standpoint the difference was only that, in Toronto, they're constantly losing iv equipment because people take their drips on to the street when they go to shoot up whereas, in Vancouver, they allow the street drug dealers into the hospital.

I don't think Toronto's dangerous but it is a bit scuzzy, lots of prostitution, street drug dealing, begging, that sort of thing. Walking's not dangerous but it is unpleasant.

Jerseygirl

What I do consider a problem is some of the vagrants. One guy who was wandering along muttering to himself turned around and kicked the door of my husband's car. Another attacked a woman right in front of me...it was a Saturday afternoon on Queens Quay West.

Danny B

Believe it or not, Regina is the crime capital of Canada

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/sto.../to-crime.html

rae

i'd be curious to see where you get your figures from. its widely recognized within policing that the home office has been cooking the books since around 1999, with the advent of the british crime survey and so called ethical crime recording stats which the government would rely on with the victims of crime survey. when this showed an alarming increase in the murder rate, the home office stopped publishing the figures. murder is now lumped in with the general violent crime figures rate, which i think you'll find is substantially higher per 100,000 capita at the last report, than the above. as someone who not only took part in the survey for 10yrs put was responsible for reporting and later supervising the reporting, i can testify to how inaccurate and false the reporting is.
i have no idea whether the Toronto cops report in the same way, from what i am seeing here though, it does not seem to be the case, rather the opposite. for example, here, someone breaks into a car and steals a stereo. one crime for the mischief to auto, one for the theft. in the uk this would not even be a crime for the theft, rather vehicle interference to keep the 'theft' figures down. get the idea. double the home office figures and you may get close.

startwin

Well I sure do. And I have often done it as well. I actually feel safer walking around downtown Vancouver late at night than I do in Maple Ridge. I often walk between St Paul's hospital, the downtown and the westside late at night, of necessity, and have never ever felt threatened. However, I wouldn't venture into those few blocks of East Hastings, on the edge of downtown.