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July 22, 2015POLICE REPORTED CRIME STATISTICS, 2014 Statistics Canada has released the 2014 results for police-reported crime statistics collected under the Uniform Crime Reporting Survey. This report measures crime numbers, crime rates (per 100,000 residents), crime severity (based on sentencing data) and clearance rates by types of crime. Data are available for Canada, provinces and Census Metropolitan Areas.
Canada's crime rate(criminal code violations excluding traffic) was 5,046 offences per 100,000 residents. In comparison, Nova Scotia's crime rate for 2014 was 5,452 per 100,000 residents. Halifax's crime rate was above the national average but below the Nova Scotia average at 5,280 violations per 100,000 residents.
Property crimes accounted for the majority of crimes - for Nova Scotia 3,307 offences per 100,000 population in 2014 or 53.4 per cent of total violations. Violent crime accounted for 20.0 per cent. Rates were lowest in Ontario and Quebec for both property and violent crimes and highest in Saskatchewan.
Crime rates were down in all provinces, except British Columbia in 2014. Nationally, the crime rate was down 2.9 per cent the 11th consecutive decrease. Nova Scotia rate declined 3.4 per cent with a 0.6 per cent decline in Halifax. For Nova Scotia in 2014, there were declines in property, other criminal code violation and traffic criminal code violations but increase in violent and drug violations.
In addition to falling crime rates, the severity of crime indexes (violations weighted by average sentencing length) also declined for both violent and non-violent crimes. Overall crime severity is down 5.5 per cent in Nova Scotia and 3.9 per cent in Halifax while national crime severity is down 3.1 per cent. For Nova Scotia, severity rates for violent, non-violent and youth crimes were all down in 2014.
Police-reported crime statistics, 2014