Crime Rates in North American Metropolitan Centres

Topic Box from the 2006 Sixth Annual Benchmark Report

A common way to monitor crime levels is to examine police reported crimes. In the preceding pages, the broad categories of violent crime and property crime are used to compare BC to other Canadian provinces and to US States. Beyond these top level categories, detailed information is available by province, state and major metropolitan areas. Statistics Canada recently investigated crime data reported in Canada and the United States and found that among eight "offense level" categories of crime, only minor differences existed in seven and one, sexual assault, (Canada) was not comparable to the US category of forcible rape.

The results show that, consistent with ranks reported above for British Columbia, Vancouver has the highest combined violent and property crime rate among major Canadian and American cities. While Vancouver has high property crime rates – the highest break and enter and theft rates, the fourth-highest motor vehicle theft rate behind Winnipeg, Phoenix, and Edmonton and the highest overall rate – it ranks better on violent crimes and has rates well below those found in all the US cities profiled, except for Boston. Vancouver ranked eighth on the homicide rate with 2.9 per 100,000 population, above the national average of 2.0 but less than one-third of bottom ranked Detroit. A similar pattern shows up for aggravated assault and robbery although the spreads between Vancouver's rate and the bottom ranked cities are not as large. Vancouver's violent crime rate of 361 incidents per 100,000 population earned it a ninth place rank, behind top ranked Boston at 122 incidents per 100,000 population and ahead of bottom ranked Detroit with 697.

Note: Canadian cities were chosen from Canada's Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs) and American cities were chosen from the similarly defined Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs). The table above accounts for roughly 84.2 percent of all personal and property crimes reported in the Vancouver CMA in 2005. The Vancouver CMA has a population share of 50.7 percent and accounts for 51.4 percent of BC's personal and property crimes.