J Summer 2012 Criminology 103 Crime Starters Assignment As you are aware, criminal justice ofacials, politicians, and academics are always looking for and proposing ways to ieduce crime. Some of the...

Crime rates in Canada lowest since 1972 – Statistics Canada
Canada’s crime rate has been decreasing at a steady pace since 1990, and reached its lowest
level since 1972 in 2011. According to the latest release by Statistics Canada, Canadian
police reported approximately 2.0 million criminal code incidents, which were approximately
110,000 or 5.2% lower than 2010. Since 1998, the total crime rate declined from 8,092 per
100,000 people to 5,756 per 100,000 people in 2011. This is by far the lowest in the last four
decades. This has come as a major boost for the police and the ruling political parties in
Canada who have been looking out for ways to curb crimes in the region.
Table 1.1: Crime Rate, Canada, 1998-2011 (per 100,000 people)
With the rising young population in Canada, the police department and the government have
been spending heavily on reducing the crime conducted by young population in the region.
According to the statistics released by the Statistics Canada, the Young Canadian population
remained the major contributor to crime in the last few years. Stats show that approximately
26% of the violent crimes in 2009/10 were committed by population in the age group 18 to
24. However, persistent efforts by the police and the central government also show a
declining trend in number of cases involving youth. The number of cases in the youth court
declined approximately 7% in 2010 compared to the year 2009.
Table 1.2: Cases completed in youth court, Canada, 2000/2001 to 2010/2011
-8%
-6%
-4%
-2%
0%
2%
4%
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000
8000
9000
1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
Crime Rate (per 100,000 people) % Growth
0
10000
20000
30000
40000
50000
60000
70000
80000
90000
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Total Cases Violent Offences Property Offences
Decline in crimes – a worrying sign for criminal organizations
Stats above clearly show that crime rates have been on a declining trend, which is not a good
sign for the criminal organizations. Not only has the overall crime rate reduced, but the crime
conducted by young population has considerably taken a back seat. Therefore it is very much
important that adequate steps needs to be taken to boost the number of crimes in the city. I
believe the following options must be taken into consideration to boost the crime rates in the
city:
 Introduction of community policing: This will be a key contributor to increasing the
crime as well as ensuring that Canadians perceive it as a great initiative to reduce
crime
 Introduction of community service and statutory release: This is another method in
crime rates can be increased in the city, besides ensuring that Canadians perceive it as
a great step towards controlling crime in the city
 Use of surveillance cameras for monitoring and preventing crime: Increasing
instances of crimes calls for continuous monitoring of vulnerable areas to ensure
crimes can be kept under check
 Setting a limit of drugs as legal: This activity will reduce the amount of drug
peddling, while it will also help in legal way of delivering drugs
Introduction of community policing
Steps should be taken to promote the concept of Community policing in the region.
Community policing is a more efficient and effective way of reducing the incidents of crime
and improving the quality of life. At present this concept is not very much active in the
Canadian region, while it has gained significant amount of popularity in the other developed
nations like the US and UK.
I would like to use the Community policing in the following manner to my advantage:
 Canadians perceiving it as a great move to reduce crime: I would like to focus on
the following three components of community policing to make it famous amongst
the Canadians:
o Intra departmental changes: In order for this system to be effective, it is very
important that the rapport of the police in the community is improved so that it
is able to operate more like an open system. Thus as a very first step I will
decentralize the entire department, and concert it into a flat structure. This will
ensure that the general public will be able to contact those officers who are
more responsible and can readily the citizens. In addition, careful deployment
of police officers should be done across the city so that the police can become
more proactive and can play an important role in controlling and curbing
crime. In addition, new recruitments will be carried out to add more eligible
candidates to the police department which can overall improve the stature of
the organization. Further, all the police personnel who will be deployed across
the city would be trained adequately. Finally, appropriate performance
evaluation and reward structure program should be set in place so that the
personnel are more motivated, and thus service the community in a much
better way
o Inter-agency cooperation: This is again an important aspect of community
policing which calls for better cooperation between various levels of agencies
so that better coordination levels can be reached. Concept of “Super-Agency”
can be introduced which can make the functioning as a more...