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High crime in Canada’s North

High crime in Canada’s North

The crime rate per capita in Canada’s northern communities is more than double the rate in southern Canada, says a new report by Statistics Canada.

For the first time, the federal statistical agency has looked at the northern portions of the provinces separately, for comparison to the more populated south.

The authors found that in 2013, there were 10,425 crimes reported by police per 100,000 residents of the provincial north, compared to 4,749 in the south, the report says.

In the territories, the rate was seven times higher, with 34,594 crimes reported by police per 100,000 residents.

“Everything – murder is higher, assaults are higher, sexual assaults are higher. Just generally speaking, every single offence is higher in the north than in the south,” Mary Allen, one of the authors of the report, tells Yahoo Canada News.

“Robbery and extortion are the only two offences that are lower.”

In all regions, the majority of incidents were non-violent – about 80 per cent. Overall, the crime rate in Canada is on the decline.

But while mischief and disturbing the peace were the most common crimes - accounting for 36 per cent in the provincial north and 60 per cent in the territories, compared to 18 per cent in the south – the severity of crimes overall was higher in the north, the report says.

The statistical report released Tuesday is based on data from the Uniform Crime Reporting Survey of police-reported incidents.

Some previous studies have shown that crimes are more likely to be solved in smaller communities.

“When you’ve got a thousand people… everything’s going to get captured, police are going to be aware of everything that’s going on,” Allen says.

“In a large city you don’t have that same knowledge of what’s going on so that’s possibly one reason why there’s much higher reporting of less serious incidents.”

But the rate of violent crime is also higher, she says.

The authors also looked at a 2009 social survey on victimization and found that one-third of residents in the three territories reported being the victims of crime in the previous 12 months.

The survey found victimization rates were higher among low-income residents and for women.

“Currently, there is particular concern about high rates of victimization among the Aboriginal populations who comprise a large proportion of the population in the North,” the report says.

“In the territories, victimization rates among Aboriginal populations in 2009 were notably higher than for non-Aboriginal populations.”

Ninety-four per cent of Canada’s population overall lives in the south; six per cent in the northern provinces and just 0.3 per cent in the territories.

Yet these regions accounted for 12 per cent and two per cent of police-reported crime in 2013.

“Once the size of the population is factored in, however, both areas have substantially high crime rates compared to the South,” the report says.

Northern Saskatchewan had the highest crime rate and crime severity index in the north. The Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and northern Manitoba also had high levels of crime, followed by Yukon and northern Newfoundland and Labrador.

These are communities that may face a variety of other social and economic problems, the report says.

“Many northerners live in small, isolated communities or remote areas and face the challenges of low education levels, high unemployment, and low income,” it says. “These conditions are often accompanied by high levels of substance abuse, particularly alcohol.”

But the communities of northern Canada vary greatly, Allen points out.

They include the cities of Thunder Bay and Sudbury, booming resource towns, economically impoverished communities and isolated villages.

“Communities all have their specific stories,” she says. “There is a vast variety of conditions that can be related to crime in the north and it varies. There’s no single explanation, really.”