(Submitted/New Brunswick RCMP)
Police-reported crime is up for the fourth year in a row in Canada but is still lower than a decade ago.
A new report from Statistics Canada, released Monday, shows police-reported crime rose by two per cent in 2018.
The increase was due to higher rates of fraud, some sexual assaults, shoplifting, and thefts over $5,000.
There were more than 28,700 police-reported sexual assaults in 2018 — the fourth consecutive annual increase.
“The number of sexual assaults reported by police is likely an underestimation of the true extent of sexual assault in Canada, as these types of offences often go unreported to police,” said StatsCan.
“There were notable increases in police-reported sexual assaults in 2017 and 2018, corresponding in timing to the growing public discussion of issues around sexual violence.”
Canada’s homicide rate fell by four per cent in 2018. Police reported 651 homicides, 15 fewer than the previous year.
“Despite the decline, the homicide rate was higher than the Canadian average over the previous decade,” the report said.
The report also found Indigenous people accounted for five per cent of Canada’s population in 2018 but 22 per cent of homicide victims.
New 🚨👮: Police-reported #crime in 🇨🇦, as measured by both the crime rate and the Crime Severity Index (CSI), increased for the fourth consecutive year in 2018—rising 2%. For more info, check out our new article: https://t.co/Uz1zmRGBCi pic.twitter.com/r5FHTVreSQ
— Statistics Canada (@StatCan_eng) July 22, 2019
The number of police-reported hate crimes also dropped 13 per cent after a spike in 2017.
“Even with this decline, the number of hate crimes remains higher (with the exception of 2017) than any other year since 2009, and aligns with the upward trend observed since 2014,” read the report.
In New Brunswick, the province’s crime rate rose by three per cent but was still lower than the national average.
The increase was partly due to a 24 per cent spike in police-reported fraud.
Nationally, the rate of fraud increased for the seventh year in a row, up 12 per cent to just under 149,000 incidents.
“According to some police services, increases in the reporting of fraud to their police service were connected to greater use and availability of online options for reporting fraud,” the report said.
Follow
