Summary: Declining Homicide Rates In Canada
Significant Contributions #3
Discussion Group 18, week 12
SOC*2760 Homicide
Miranda Dunsmuir (070988)
Post One
Authored by: Miranda Dunsmuir
Authored on: Apr 4, 2013 8:26 PM
Subject: Declining Homicide Rates in Canada
The homicide rates in Canada have been steadily dropping over the past decades, namely, a trend has been noted since the 1990‘s. Although there is a rapidly fluctuating population that can sometimes alter homicide statistics, an overall trend has been significantly noted.There have been various reasons suggested for why these rates are steadily dropping. I will start this post by giving a few statistics on the declining homicide …show more content…
rate.
-the number of homicides decreased 65.3% between 1991 and 2004;
-Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics has showed that the crime rate in 2011 was at its lowest point in 39 years;
-compared to other violent crimes, homicide only accounts for less than 1%;
-homicides occur in the most densely populated areas;
-the eastern provinces have the lowest violent crime rates while the western province have the highest rates.
There are many reasons that have been documented to account for this change. A very controversial explanation has to do with the changing gun legislation laws. It is now illegal to carry a concealed weapon, there is a strengthening in background checks, and other limitations have also been put in place. Most homicides are committed with a handgun, so with the access becoming more limited it makes sense that we would see a decrease in their usage. Looking at Level-pulling strategies in Boston that targeted a small portion of the population that was found to be committing a majority of crimes, the stricter gun laws and penalties resulted in a decrease in homicide. These results can be applied to the wider population.
There are also many economic factors that have helped reduce the violence in Canada. In the past, there has been clear patterns that have linked low unemployment to higher occurrences of homicide. Using a strain-based approach, it has been speculated that when work is hard to find, individuals will turn to crime in order to satisfy their monetary needs. Canada has a very high unemployment rate throughout the 80‘s, a statistic that can be linked to higher rates of violence and crime. With newer unemployment programs, welfare programs, and higher levels of education being obtained by the younger generations, we can see that there has been a decrease in homicide rates.
A significant finding in the past decade has been that the rate of domestic violence is steeply decreasing. The text mentions a relation between a rise in women’s crime, and a decrease in male crime after the women’s movement. The frequency of women ending up behind bars has actually risen 34%. Regardless of this fact, domestic violence and intimate partner homicides have decreased. More women have become empowered- leaving their homes for work and participating in more traditionally male-dominated activities. Without the reliance on a man, women are able to leave abusive relationships more easily. Another thing to note is that many programs have been implemented to give women a place to go and a support system to lean on when they are in abusive relationships. Changing legislation has also put a new emphasis on domestic abuse.
From a demographic perspective, Canada is seeing the bulk of their population age. This means that the crime-prone age group (teenagers and young adults) is becoming smaller, thus decreasing the number of violent crimes. In the Ouimet reading, statistics showed that the number of young adults and teenagers peaked and dropped in the 1980s. This could explain the higher crime rates during this time. We need to target certain age groups in order to prevent our homicide rates from rising again. Intervention programs have been implemented to teach our youth social skills as well as educational skills. According to Hirschi’s self-control perspective, policies should aim to target the youth because this is the most critical age for socialization. Socialization in the home and at school are very pivotal.
There are various stipulated reasons for why individuals have chosen not to commit homicides, however, advancements in medical technology can also be attributed as a reason because it lowers the number of incidents that result in death. With more cell phones and communication techniques, medical response teams are called quicker, and have been arriving more quickly on crime scenes. There is also an increase in medical care and medical techniques that have helped save many lives. This has been stipulated to be a factor in reducing the number of fatal violent crimes. This can also been seen as an avenue for future prevention.
Lastly, I would like to mention the changes in the Canadian Justice System and the policing practices within Canada. There have been an increase in the number of police officers in problem areas, more aggressive police practices, and longer incarceration has been discussed.
As you can see, there are many social and societal changes that have been made throughout the last decade that has most definitely aided in the decline in homicide rates. We need to continue to implement these programs that target high-risk groups as well as continuing to educate and teach skills to our younger generations. I have mentioned a number of different criminological approaches through this post (i.e. strain based, self-control theory..etc). Have you seen any policy implementations that have emphasized a certain theory of criminology?
CBC. “Canada’s Crime rate in 2011 lowest since 1972”. CBC News. July 24, 2012. last ed.: A1. Online. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012/07/24/crime-stats-canada.html
Davies, Kim (2008). “The Murder Book: Examining Homicide”. Pearson Education Inc, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey
Ouimet Marc. “Explaining the American and Canadian ‘drop’ in the 1990’s” Canadian Journal of Criminology. (2002) Vol.44. No.1.pp 33-35. Print.
Post two
Authored by: Miranda Dunsmuir
Authored on: Apr 4, 2013 9:08 PM
Subject: Re: Interview about Decreasing Homicide Rates in Canada
Hello Brianna,
I really enjoyed reading your posting.
I liked that you mentioned the decreasing amount of hate crime and racism. I don’t think I have seen that in a post thus far, although there has been mention of the further development of equality in Canada. I would like to expand on your point about hate crimes and murders. According to the Davies text, a hate crime is defined as a crime that is motivated by, “hatred, bias, or prejudice, based on the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation of another individual or group of individuals.” According to statistics Canada the amount of violent hate crimes have dropped in the recent years, and although this may not significantly affect the declining homicide statistics, it still does have an impact. I mentioned in my last post that the Ouimet reading highlights the fact that while our population is aging, the most crime prone group, being teenagers and young adults, is becoming smaller. This group peaked and dropped in the 80’s. I believe that this might have something to do with the decline in hate crimes. As time goes on and our citizens become more cultured and accepting (seen with women and with different races), our rates of homicide have been dropping. This means, that although homicide is still being committed, the targets are not the same. It is interesting to note that, even with an increasing number of immigrants coming into Canada, the number of hate crimes are dropping …show more content…
and the more programs and support for minority citizens are developing.
I would also like to take some time to focus on the development of new technologies. You mentioned the ViCLAS system and how it may be helping reduce the homicide rate by targeting repeat offenders. The ViCLAS (Violent Criminal Apprehension Program) technology was developed as a result of a string of murders in the 1980’s. Police services found that it was time to generate a central store of information to help track and identify violent crime. By entering violent crimes, officials have the ability to link offenses based on similarities in cases, such as offender’s behavior. The crime spree that sparked this development occurred in the 80’s- a time when homicide rates were high. I would like to further investigate how the ViCLAS system has prevented further homicides from occurring. Another realm of technologies that have affected our changing homicide rates are the advances in medical technology (which i have mentioned in a previous post).
I also enjoyed looking at the report in the New York Times you mentioned about how researchers are starting to use murder as a window to understanding society. I had never really considered this before, however, I believe that it is very true! Not only are we able to see how our society is developing in a cultural way, but also in a demographic and economic way. I never considered the fact that these developments impacted all realms of our society- including homicide rates. We see connections between unemployment and homicide, social support groups and homicide, geography and homicide. This is very interesting and it makes me realize that there are so many things that can be altered and developed in all realms of society to help further reduce our homicide rates. What realm do you think is most important to investigate in order to further our crime rates? Should we focus on changing the dilution of crime out of bigger cities through policing strategies? Should we try to target individuals from becoming criminals in the first place? Or should we work on rehabilitating repeat offenders?
-Miranda Dunsmuir
Davies, Kim (2008). “The Murder Book: Examining Homicide”. Pearson Education Inc, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey
Ouimet Marc. “Explaining the American and Canadian ‘drop’ in the 1990’s” Canadian Journal of Criminology. (2002) Vol.44. No.1.pp 33-35. Print.
RCMP Violent Crime Linkage Analysis System (ViCLAS). (2009). Royal Canadian Mounted Police. January 31, 2013.http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/tops-opst/bs-sc/viclas-salvac-eng.htm
Post Three
Authored by: Miranda Dunsmuir
Authored on: Apr 4, 2013 9:52 PM
Subject: Re: Canada, homicide and contributing factors
Hello Tiffany, Within your post, what stood out to me was your mention of the controlling of drugs and alcohol. As you pointed out Davies and Statistics Canada have found a positive correlation between the consumption of drugs and alcohol and the rate at which homicide is committed. It has also been noted that alcohol is typically more involved in homicide than illegal drugs.
I wanted to research this topic more because it was mentioned that crime rates have decreased over time, however, there was a period of prohibition in which alcohol was not able to be sold. The homicide rates during this period were still very high Involvement in gangs, black-market dealing, and other illegal activities ensued. This made me wonder whether the limitation of alcohol sales will have any affect on the homicide rates because it has also been shown that when alcohol isn’t sold there is a problem. In an article I read about violence and the prohibition of drugs and alcohol, they stated that “...evidence fails to make a case that prohibitions reduce violence by reducing alcohol or drug consumption.” (Miron, Jeffrey, 1999) If a prohibition happened in modern times do you think that the homicide rates would decrease? Perhaps because of our maturing societies and newly developing ideologies, policies, and programs, our society would not react in the same way? This is an example of how reducing the homicide rate is very difficult because, put in the same situation, people will react in all different ways. Although the restrictions placed on alcohol is a very small effect to reduce homicide rates, I found it interesting to note how society can react positively and negatively to similar measures over time.
I thought more about drugs and homicide as well. A lot of gang-crime and street crime is related to the buying and selling of drugs, however, not all those who sell the drugs use them. Research has shown that a lot of street youth use illicit substances. Implementing the strain theory approach, we would assume that when a person does not have the financial means to buy drugs, they may turn to illegal activities to access them. It would be interesting to see the statistics that reflect the number of drug related homicides that are commit by both the users and the sellers, however this particular demographic is hard to get a comprehensive overview on.
If we look at the recent trend in the decrease of domestic violence and intimate partner homicide, we may speculate that this is because of the women’s movement and different social programs being put in place. Whilst the rate is declining between domestic partnerships, we have seen that there is a rise in the number of women offenders. Regardless of the different policies and programs, more women are committing crime than before. While policies to support women are put in place that help a certain number of them, other women are not fazed by them. This illustrates the way that policies take effect and how certain cultural changes have affected the genders and relationships between individuals.
This post has been aimed largely at the way that crime control efforts are very controversial and often affect people in different ways.
Crime is not uniform, nor are the individuals living within each society. We need to find ways to reduce crime that reaches not only a specific demographic, but the population at large. Can you think of any policies that may be difficult to implement because it can have two different outcomes?
-Miranda Dunsmuir
Davies, Kim (2008). “The Murder Book: Examining Homicide”. Pearson Education Inc, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey
Miron, Jeffrey. “Violence and the U.S. Prohibitions of Drugs and Alcohol.” The National Bureau of Economic Research. Massachusetts (1999), Online http://www.nber.org/papers/w6950.pdf?new_window=1
Serran, G., Firestone, P. “Intimate Partner Homicide: A review of the male proprietariness and the self-defense theories.” Aggression and Violent Behavior. (2004). Vol. 9, pp.1-15.
Print
Discussion Group 18, week 12
SOC*2760 Homicide
Miranda Dunsmuir (070988)
Post One
Authored by: Miranda Dunsmuir
Authored on: Apr 4, 2013 8:26 PM
Subject: Declining Homicide Rates in Canada
The homicide rates in Canada have been steadily dropping over the past decades, namely, a trend has been noted since the 1990‘s. Although there is a rapidly fluctuating population that can sometimes alter homicide statistics, an overall trend has been significantly noted.There have been various reasons suggested for why these rates are steadily dropping. I will start this post by giving a few statistics on the declining homicide …show more content…
rate.
-the number of homicides decreased 65.3% between 1991 and 2004;
-Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics has showed that the crime rate in 2011 was at its lowest point in 39 years;
-compared to other violent crimes, homicide only accounts for less than 1%;
-homicides occur in the most densely populated areas;
-the eastern provinces have the lowest violent crime rates while the western province have the highest rates.
There are many reasons that have been documented to account for this change. A very controversial explanation has to do with the changing gun legislation laws. It is now illegal to carry a concealed weapon, there is a strengthening in background checks, and other limitations have also been put in place. Most homicides are committed with a handgun, so with the access becoming more limited it makes sense that we would see a decrease in their usage. Looking at Level-pulling strategies in Boston that targeted a small portion of the population that was found to be committing a majority of crimes, the stricter gun laws and penalties resulted in a decrease in homicide. These results can be applied to the wider population.
There are also many economic factors that have helped reduce the violence in Canada. In the past, there has been clear patterns that have linked low unemployment to higher occurrences of homicide. Using a strain-based approach, it has been speculated that when work is hard to find, individuals will turn to crime in order to satisfy their monetary needs. Canada has a very high unemployment rate throughout the 80‘s, a statistic that can be linked to higher rates of violence and crime. With newer unemployment programs, welfare programs, and higher levels of education being obtained by the younger generations, we can see that there has been a decrease in homicide rates.
A significant finding in the past decade has been that the rate of domestic violence is steeply decreasing. The text mentions a relation between a rise in women’s crime, and a decrease in male crime after the women’s movement. The frequency of women ending up behind bars has actually risen 34%. Regardless of this fact, domestic violence and intimate partner homicides have decreased. More women have become empowered- leaving their homes for work and participating in more traditionally male-dominated activities. Without the reliance on a man, women are able to leave abusive relationships more easily. Another thing to note is that many programs have been implemented to give women a place to go and a support system to lean on when they are in abusive relationships. Changing legislation has also put a new emphasis on domestic abuse.
From a demographic perspective, Canada is seeing the bulk of their population age. This means that the crime-prone age group (teenagers and young adults) is becoming smaller, thus decreasing the number of violent crimes. In the Ouimet reading, statistics showed that the number of young adults and teenagers peaked and dropped in the 1980s. This could explain the higher crime rates during this time. We need to target certain age groups in order to prevent our homicide rates from rising again. Intervention programs have been implemented to teach our youth social skills as well as educational skills. According to Hirschi’s self-control perspective, policies should aim to target the youth because this is the most critical age for socialization. Socialization in the home and at school are very pivotal.
There are various stipulated reasons for why individuals have chosen not to commit homicides, however, advancements in medical technology can also be attributed as a reason because it lowers the number of incidents that result in death. With more cell phones and communication techniques, medical response teams are called quicker, and have been arriving more quickly on crime scenes. There is also an increase in medical care and medical techniques that have helped save many lives. This has been stipulated to be a factor in reducing the number of fatal violent crimes. This can also been seen as an avenue for future prevention.
Lastly, I would like to mention the changes in the Canadian Justice System and the policing practices within Canada. There have been an increase in the number of police officers in problem areas, more aggressive police practices, and longer incarceration has been discussed.
As you can see, there are many social and societal changes that have been made throughout the last decade that has most definitely aided in the decline in homicide rates. We need to continue to implement these programs that target high-risk groups as well as continuing to educate and teach skills to our younger generations. I have mentioned a number of different criminological approaches through this post (i.e. strain based, self-control theory..etc). Have you seen any policy implementations that have emphasized a certain theory of criminology?
CBC. “Canada’s Crime rate in 2011 lowest since 1972”. CBC News. July 24, 2012. last ed.: A1. Online. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012/07/24/crime-stats-canada.html
Davies, Kim (2008). “The Murder Book: Examining Homicide”. Pearson Education Inc, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey
Ouimet Marc. “Explaining the American and Canadian ‘drop’ in the 1990’s” Canadian Journal of Criminology. (2002) Vol.44. No.1.pp 33-35. Print.
Post two
Authored by: Miranda Dunsmuir
Authored on: Apr 4, 2013 9:08 PM
Subject: Re: Interview about Decreasing Homicide Rates in Canada
Hello Brianna,
I really enjoyed reading your posting.
I liked that you mentioned the decreasing amount of hate crime and racism. I don’t think I have seen that in a post thus far, although there has been mention of the further development of equality in Canada. I would like to expand on your point about hate crimes and murders. According to the Davies text, a hate crime is defined as a crime that is motivated by, “hatred, bias, or prejudice, based on the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation of another individual or group of individuals.” According to statistics Canada the amount of violent hate crimes have dropped in the recent years, and although this may not significantly affect the declining homicide statistics, it still does have an impact. I mentioned in my last post that the Ouimet reading highlights the fact that while our population is aging, the most crime prone group, being teenagers and young adults, is becoming smaller. This group peaked and dropped in the 80’s. I believe that this might have something to do with the decline in hate crimes. As time goes on and our citizens become more cultured and accepting (seen with women and with different races), our rates of homicide have been dropping. This means, that although homicide is still being committed, the targets are not the same. It is interesting to note that, even with an increasing number of immigrants coming into Canada, the number of hate crimes are dropping …show more content…
and the more programs and support for minority citizens are developing.
I would also like to take some time to focus on the development of new technologies. You mentioned the ViCLAS system and how it may be helping reduce the homicide rate by targeting repeat offenders. The ViCLAS (Violent Criminal Apprehension Program) technology was developed as a result of a string of murders in the 1980’s. Police services found that it was time to generate a central store of information to help track and identify violent crime. By entering violent crimes, officials have the ability to link offenses based on similarities in cases, such as offender’s behavior. The crime spree that sparked this development occurred in the 80’s- a time when homicide rates were high. I would like to further investigate how the ViCLAS system has prevented further homicides from occurring. Another realm of technologies that have affected our changing homicide rates are the advances in medical technology (which i have mentioned in a previous post).
I also enjoyed looking at the report in the New York Times you mentioned about how researchers are starting to use murder as a window to understanding society. I had never really considered this before, however, I believe that it is very true! Not only are we able to see how our society is developing in a cultural way, but also in a demographic and economic way. I never considered the fact that these developments impacted all realms of our society- including homicide rates. We see connections between unemployment and homicide, social support groups and homicide, geography and homicide. This is very interesting and it makes me realize that there are so many things that can be altered and developed in all realms of society to help further reduce our homicide rates. What realm do you think is most important to investigate in order to further our crime rates? Should we focus on changing the dilution of crime out of bigger cities through policing strategies? Should we try to target individuals from becoming criminals in the first place? Or should we work on rehabilitating repeat offenders?
-Miranda Dunsmuir
Davies, Kim (2008). “The Murder Book: Examining Homicide”. Pearson Education Inc, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey
Ouimet Marc. “Explaining the American and Canadian ‘drop’ in the 1990’s” Canadian Journal of Criminology. (2002) Vol.44. No.1.pp 33-35. Print.
RCMP Violent Crime Linkage Analysis System (ViCLAS). (2009). Royal Canadian Mounted Police. January 31, 2013.http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/tops-opst/bs-sc/viclas-salvac-eng.htm
Post Three
Authored by: Miranda Dunsmuir
Authored on: Apr 4, 2013 9:52 PM
Subject: Re: Canada, homicide and contributing factors
Hello Tiffany, Within your post, what stood out to me was your mention of the controlling of drugs and alcohol. As you pointed out Davies and Statistics Canada have found a positive correlation between the consumption of drugs and alcohol and the rate at which homicide is committed. It has also been noted that alcohol is typically more involved in homicide than illegal drugs.
I wanted to research this topic more because it was mentioned that crime rates have decreased over time, however, there was a period of prohibition in which alcohol was not able to be sold. The homicide rates during this period were still very high Involvement in gangs, black-market dealing, and other illegal activities ensued. This made me wonder whether the limitation of alcohol sales will have any affect on the homicide rates because it has also been shown that when alcohol isn’t sold there is a problem. In an article I read about violence and the prohibition of drugs and alcohol, they stated that “...evidence fails to make a case that prohibitions reduce violence by reducing alcohol or drug consumption.” (Miron, Jeffrey, 1999) If a prohibition happened in modern times do you think that the homicide rates would decrease? Perhaps because of our maturing societies and newly developing ideologies, policies, and programs, our society would not react in the same way? This is an example of how reducing the homicide rate is very difficult because, put in the same situation, people will react in all different ways. Although the restrictions placed on alcohol is a very small effect to reduce homicide rates, I found it interesting to note how society can react positively and negatively to similar measures over time.
I thought more about drugs and homicide as well. A lot of gang-crime and street crime is related to the buying and selling of drugs, however, not all those who sell the drugs use them. Research has shown that a lot of street youth use illicit substances. Implementing the strain theory approach, we would assume that when a person does not have the financial means to buy drugs, they may turn to illegal activities to access them. It would be interesting to see the statistics that reflect the number of drug related homicides that are commit by both the users and the sellers, however this particular demographic is hard to get a comprehensive overview on.
If we look at the recent trend in the decrease of domestic violence and intimate partner homicide, we may speculate that this is because of the women’s movement and different social programs being put in place. Whilst the rate is declining between domestic partnerships, we have seen that there is a rise in the number of women offenders. Regardless of the different policies and programs, more women are committing crime than before. While policies to support women are put in place that help a certain number of them, other women are not fazed by them. This illustrates the way that policies take effect and how certain cultural changes have affected the genders and relationships between individuals.
This post has been aimed largely at the way that crime control efforts are very controversial and often affect people in different ways.
Crime is not uniform, nor are the individuals living within each society. We need to find ways to reduce crime that reaches not only a specific demographic, but the population at large. Can you think of any policies that may be difficult to implement because it can have two different outcomes?
-Miranda Dunsmuir
Davies, Kim (2008). “The Murder Book: Examining Homicide”. Pearson Education Inc, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey
Miron, Jeffrey. “Violence and the U.S. Prohibitions of Drugs and Alcohol.” The National Bureau of Economic Research. Massachusetts (1999), Online http://www.nber.org/papers/w6950.pdf?new_window=1
Serran, G., Firestone, P. “Intimate Partner Homicide: A review of the male proprietariness and the self-defense theories.” Aggression and Violent Behavior. (2004). Vol. 9, pp.1-15.