Canada's Crime Bill: $40 Billion

Current levels of violent crime are 400% higher than 35 years ago, according to study

Contact:

Steve Easton, Senior Fellow
The Fraser Institute, (604) 688-0221, ext. 561 Email: stevee@fraserinstitute.ca

Paul Brantingham, Professor of Criminology
Simon Fraser University, (604) 688-0221

Release Date: 9 February 1998

VANCOUVER, BC>>>  Crime costs Canadians up to $17 billion a year and soars to over $40 billion when indirect costs associated with pain and suffering are included, according to a study released today by the Fraser Institute. Canada's latest crime bill is based on the 2.7 million criminal incidents reported to police in 1996.

"These are substantial amounts, and while the overall crime rate is falling (including violent crime), it would be a mistake to become complacent," said Steve Easton, co-author of The Costs of Crime: Who Pays and How Much (1998 Update) and Senior Fellow at the Fraser Institute. "The decline in the population of young males may explain some of the falling crime rate, but that decline will be reversed in the next few years." Easton's report, co-authored with Paul Brantingham, professor of criminology at Simon Fraser University, shows that current levels of violent crime are 400 percent higher than they were in the early 1960s.

According to the study, the most common victims of homicides, assaults and robbery are men; young people are more likely to be victims than older people; and the rate of victimization for the 15-24 age group is double that of the 25-44 age group, and five to six times higher than that of the 45-64 age group.

Like the victims, known criminal offenders tend to be young and male. The typical offender is also from low-income segments of the population.

Among the study's other findings:

1. One in four Canadians reported that they were victimized by some kind of criminal act in 1996, although most crimes were not reported to police.
   
2. The total estimated cost of crime and punishment in Canada is between 2.2 percent and 5.3 percent of GDP, or about the same percentage spent on our public schools. This amounts to between $586 and $1,420 for every man, woman and child in the country.
   
3. Canadian governments spend almost $10 billion a year trying to control crime, and private security firms are paid at least another $6 billion to protect what people produce and sell. There are almost twice as many security guards as police officers in Canada.
   
4. The rates of crime against property are directly related to a nation's level of economic development: the higher a nation's per-capita GDP, the higher that nation's rate of property crime. The rates of violent crime are inversely related to a nation's level of economic development: the lower a nation's per-capita GDP, the higher its violent crime rate. The pattern of crime in Canada is consistent with these generalizations.
   
5. Police solve most violent crimes, clearing four of five assaults and homicides, and seven of 10 sexual assaults. In contrast, the police solve very few property crimes: fewer than one of five B&Es, 15 percent of motor vehicle thefts, and only about one petty theft in 10.
   
6. Although the criminal code is the same across Canada, there are substantial differences in the lengths of sentences imposed for the same crime across provinces. For example, those convicted of a break and enter in Quebec can expect a prison sentence of 91 days; in Ontario it is 137 days. Convicted burglars in Newfoundland draw expected prison sentences of 51 days, in contrast to PEI and Nova Scotia at 211 and 155 days, respectively.
   
7. Rates of recidivism: 63 percent of burglars, 53 percent of robbers and a third of sexual assault offenders will be returned to prison for committing a similar offence within three years of release. Among young offenders, almost 60 percent of those convicted at age 17 have prior convictions.
   
8. British Columbia has the highest rate of crime in Canada; Newfoundland has the lowest.

Established in 1974, The Fraser Institute is an independent public policy organization based in Vancouver.

For further information:

Suzanne Walters, Director of Communications,

The Fraser Institute, (604) 714-4582,
Email suzannew@fraserinstitute.ca

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