New Statistics Canada Article on Crime Statistics

The Statistics Canada publication Juristat published an article earlier this week on Police-reported crime statistics in Canada, 2021.

Among the highlights:

• At 5,375 incidents per 100,000 population, the police-reported crime rate—which measures the volume of crime—increased 1% in 2021, following a 9% decrease in 2020. In 2021, the violent crime rate increased 5%, while the property crime rate decreased 1%. Following a large decrease in 2020, the property crime rate was the lowest it has been dating back to 1965.
• Police-reported crime in Canada, as measured by the Crime Severity Index (CSI), remained stable, changing from 73.9 in 2020 to 73.7 in 2021. This follows a 7% drop in the CSI in 2020, the first after 5 years of increases. The stability in the overall CSI was the result of increases in violent crime and continued decreases in non-violent crime. The CSI measures the volume and severity of police-reported crime in Canada, and it has a base index value of 100 for 2006.
• The Violent CSI rose 5% in 2021, and was higher than in 2019, prior to the pandemic. The increase was primarily driven by a relatively large rise in the rate of level 1 sexual assault (+18%). Various other violent crimes also increased in volume in 2021, however they had a more marginal impact on the CSI. The rise in level 1 sexual assault accounted for 40% of the increase in the Violent CSI. Overall, there were 34,242 police-reported sexual assaults (level 1, 2 and 3), representing 90 incidents per 100,000 population in 2021.
• The Non-violent CSI—which includes, for example, property offences and drug offences—declined 3%, after a 9% drop in 2020. Much of this decline was due to lower rates of breaking and entering (-10%) and theft of $5,000 or under (-4%).
• Nationally, there were 788 homicides, 29 more than the previous year. The national homicide rate increased 3% from 2.00 homicides per 100,000 population in 2020, to 2.06 homicides per 100,000 population in 2021. Police-reported 190 Indigenous victims of homicide, 18 fewer than in 2020. Despite the decrease, the rate of homicide for Indigenous peoples (9.17 per 100,000 population) was approximately 6 times higher than the rate for non-Indigenous people (1.55 per 100,000 population). The rate of homicide for individuals identified by police as persons of a group designated as racialized increased 34% in 2021 to 2.51 homicides per 100,000 population. This rate was higher than for victims identified as belonging to the rest of the population (1.81 homicides per 100,000 population).
• The number of police-reported hate crimes increased 27% to 3,360 incidents in 2021. Compared with 2019, hate crimes have increased 72% over the last two years. More hate crimes targeting religion (+67%) (including Jewish, Muslim and Catholic) and sexual orientation (+64%) accounted for most of the national change, along with more incidents targeting race or ethnicity (+6%).