Crime statistics: Violence in Halifax
IF the federal Conservatives’ tough-on-crime agenda is responsible for pushing Canada’s crime rate to a 40-year low in 2011, as Public Safety Minister Vic Toews is now claiming, is Ottawa equally to blame for the national rise in murders and child pornography cases last year?
No, because Mr. Toews’ politically motivated premise is flawed. The six per cent drop in the national crime rate and matching six per cent decline in the crime severity index are continuations of downward trends that go back nearly a decade. The crime rate in Canada actually peaked in 1991. Mr. Toews’ spinning aside, the good news is that since then, the rate has, for the most part, been dropping.
The most recent police-reported 2011 crime measurements, released last week by Statistics Canada, also showed welcome declines in all categories — crime and violent crime rates, crime severity and violent crime severity indexes — in Nova Scotia. Disquietingly, however, Nova Scotia still has the highest crime rate, crime severity index and violent crime severity index of provinces east of Manitoba.
Halifax seems to be the main culprit. Both the crime severity and violent crime severity indexes for Nova Scotia’s capital city are well above the province’s in those categories.
Nationally, Halifax ranked second, behind only Winnipeg, for highest homicide rate among census metropolitan areas. The 19 homicides in the city last year — from stabbings, shootings and beatings — were the most recorded since such data began being collected in 1981, Statistics Canada reported.
Encouragingly, Halifax police say that changes they’ve made in the wake of last year’s violence, which included 75 shooting incidents, have made a difference this year.
Those include police being more vocal about going after people involved in violence, targeting known weapons for seizure, high-visibility downtown patrols on weekend nights and a guns-and-gangs unit.
The numbers reported by Halifax police so far in 2012 — 30 per cent fewer homicides (seven) and attempted murders — do suggest their efforts are helping. But for many residents, an incident like the daytime shooting on Quinpool Road this past spring is one too many.
Tough on crime agenda.... works.
Submitted by Babblingbaby on July 30, 2012 - 6:38am.
Those that are holding the Harper gov't crime agenda back, should re-evaluate their position.
Huh?
Submitted by bobbisox99 on July 30, 2012 - 7:26am.
Did you even read the article? The only thing that needs re-evaluation is the nonsense that these Reformers spew for the benefit of the sleeping critical mass.
I read it.
Submitted by voiceofreality on July 30, 2012 - 11:29am.
Another anti-conservative opinion piece in Herald. Nothing new.
The telling comment in the piece is that the author foolishly believes HPD's propaganda that they are doing something positive to stem the tide of homicides and shootings. That alone should show the author knows not of what he writes. Getting tough on crime does work. Not as a deterrent; but to remove the criminals from society.
yea Vic
Submitted by henry gondorf on July 30, 2012 - 7:18am.
Vic hasn't a clue what he is talking about...
Food for Thought
Submitted by pitstop on July 30, 2012 - 7:27am.
Overheard the comments of a concerned Haligonian this weekend. His take on the present crime situation? "We would never be in this mess if the Hell's Angels were still around".
His comment, in retrospect, made a slight bit of sense especially when the majority of people around him actually noded their heads in agreement.
Has this incessant,very public drug violence after the Angels were run out of town been worth it?
Not tough enough on crime.
Submitted by hav2b on July 30, 2012 - 8:05am.
In cases of murder, the courts should eliminate prospective repeat-offenders directly after conviction.
Guns don't kill, neither do dead convicts.
Right on. How may times do we
Submitted by BC on July 30, 2012 - 9:03am.
Right on.
How may times do we read this from the police
"not a random incident" "suspect known to police"
I bet it's not far from 99.9% of police statements.
Preston Factor
Submitted by Bill Kelley on July 30, 2012 - 8:09am.
Timely column considering that yet another person was murdered in Preston overnight. Perhaps they might consider opening a police station and a hospital on the Lake Majors Road, it will save on gas.
Pitstop
Submitted by got to love it on July 30, 2012 - 8:02am.
You are right.
Halifax is going though a higher rate of violence because of the absence of a well organized criminal organization to police the illicit drug trade. Sad to say but as long as there will be a lack of control by one group, we will continue to see gang at war to get control of the illicit commodity trade in HRM.
Law enforcement are working at their best to curb it but the laws are not on their side unfortunately.
Sure!
Submitted by honker on July 30, 2012 - 9:47am.
Sure, bring back the Hells Angels, sure. That will solve it for sure. Sure! Too long in the pits, fumes gone to the head.
Get serioius with drug users.
Submitted by traispealot on July 30, 2012 - 9:00am.
Little is going to change unless the demand for drugs is stemmed. You can put every known gun-totting dealer and pusher in jail tomorrow and the next day new dealers and pushers will be on the streets selling their wares. Put drug sniffing dogs in every patrol car and every time a traffic offender is pulled over, let the dog get a whiff of the interior. If there's drugs in that car, mete out significantly something more serious than a couple hundred dollar fine. It would take a while, but those who use drugs will eventually get the message.
Warped logic
Submitted by mact on July 30, 2012 - 8:55am.
If we tripled size of the police force or put the military on the streets to curb crime, you would never hear the end of it. We would be verging on armed rebellion against a "police/military" state. Yet there is a groundswell opinion that the hells angles be reinstated to their status of regional supreme street gang. Give your heads a shake. I have a better idea. Turn the streets over to the Mexican Cartel(s) they are even better at it than the angels.
SERIOUS ON GUN CRIMES
Submitted by bearpaw on July 30, 2012 - 9:28am.
Really get serious on gun crimes. Police know where the guns are. Let them stop every car, after midnight, IN SPECIFIC AREAS, and search for guns. I know, we are supposedly civilized, but maybe, if we cut off their trigger finger, they will get the message. Seriously, the problems come from our swinging door justice system. The police catch them. The JUDGES let them go.
little johnny/jane
Submitted by more equal than you on July 30, 2012 - 10:41am.
Yes,it's time we made laws that would force every gun-toting criminal to register their illegal guns.That'll fix 'em.(I guess I'll have to point out that is sarcasm)
Or maybe it's time we started having judges enforcing the laws.I don't want to hear any more about..."little johnny was just starting to turn his/her life around.......yes,yes,yes he does have 93 previous convictions and was apprehended committing another gun crime or beating some poor sap near to death(with the assistance of 5 other accomplices)because he/she wanted their new I-pad.......but he/she is basically a good little boy/girl".BS
Same Old, Same Old
Submitted by daveburris on July 30, 2012 - 11:17am.
But we are making slight progress, at least the editor will admit that Halifax has a crime problem, now there is a first.
The problem that the stats are hiding is that they count only those crimes which are actually reported to the police, of which barely 25% of crime is actually reported - "According to the 2009 GSS(General Social Survey), about 7.4 million Canadians, or just over one-quarter of the population aged 15 years and older, reported being a victim of a criminal incident in the preceding 12 months" This means the crime rate is actually about 25,000(crimes per 100,000 of population), NOT the 5,756 that the stats proclaim. The crime rate is about 5 times worse than reported. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2010002/article/11340-eng.htm#a1
And, by the way this is NOT declining, this report also states "This proportion(just over one-quarter of the population) was essentially unchanged from that reported in 2004" Also "the rates of violent and household victimization were similar to those reported in 2004"
Not a pretty picture, and the principal reasons are the laws and judiciary that WILL NOT PUNISH. Just look at the fiasco reported in this paper the other day and remarked on by a letter to-day - "the man who was sentenced to 11 years for shooting up a dwelling in Dartmouth. That seemed quite reassuring (but)this specimen of humanity has a record of over 50 convictions. Why was this man walking around in our society?" AND those convictions included "robbery, drug trafficking, dangerous driving causing DEATH and assault with a weapon" Unbelievable. Jail for life, no less, or the noose.
And some of you still cling to the fiction that we don't have a crime problem. We have two problems, the crime problem and the rose-coloured glasses problem.