Ontario: Crime Severity Index
2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Crime Severity Index | 65.6 | 61.2 | 59.0 | 52.4 | 49.7 | 50.6 | |
Percent Change in Crime Severity Index | -5.4% | -6.7% | -3.6% | -11.1% | -5.2% | 1.9% | |
Violent Crime Severity Index | 77.9 | 72.7 | 69.9 | 61.7 | 57.6 | 59.2 | |
Percent Change in Violent Crime Severity Index | -4.9% | -6.7% | -3.8% | -11.7% | -6.7% | 2.8% | |
Non-Violent Crime Severity Index | 60.9 | 56.8 | 54.8 | 48.9 | 46.7 | 47.4 | |
Percent Change in Non-Violent Crime Severity Index | -5.6% | -6.6% | -3.5% | -10.8% | -4.5% | 1.4% | |
Youth Crime Severity Indexa | 81.0 | 73.8 | 67.3 | 53.6 | 51.1 | 50.3 | |
Percent change in youth crime severity index | -7.5% | -8.9% | -8.8% | -20.4% | -4.6% | -1.7% | |
Weighted clearance rate (number)b | 42.3 | 43.0 | 43.3 | 43.7 | 43.1 | 42.8 | |
Percent change in weighted clearance rate | 0.6% | 1.8% | 0.7% | 0.9% | -1.4% | -0.9% | |
The Overall Crime Severity Index includes all Criminal Code and federal statute offences.
The Violent Crime Severity Index includes all violent offences.
The Non-violent Crime Severity Index includes everything that does not fall into the category of violent offences.
If a jurisdiction has a high proportion of less serious, lower weighted offences it will have a lower index value. Equally, a jurisdiction with a high proportion of more serious crimes will have a higher index value.
The principle behind the Crime Severity Index was to have more serious
crimes carry a higher weight than less serious crimes and therefore
changes in more serious crimes would have a greater impact on the Index
than the traditional crime rate. The Crime Severity Index includes all
reported crimes, unlike the traditional crime rate which excludes
traffic, drug offences and Federal Statutes.
To calculate the
Crime Severity Index, the number of police-reported incidents for each
offence is multiplied by the weight for that offence. All weighted
offences are then added together and divided by the corresponding
population total. The Index is then standardized to "100" for Canada (a
system that is similar to the Consumer Price Index), using 2006 as a
base year.
For more information on the Crime Severity Index, please click here.
Year-over-year comparisons should be made with caution as many non-criminally related factors can affect data from one year to another (openings, closures or reorganizations of police departments, redistribution of municipalities serviced among different police departments, significant population increases etc.).
The Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Survey produces a continuous historical record of crime and traffic statistics reported by every police agency in Canada since 1962. In 1988, a new version of the survey was created, UCR2, and is since referred to as the "incident-based" survey, in which microdata on characteristics of incidents, victims and accused are captured. For more information please click here.
Statistics Canada information is used with the permission of Statistics Canada. Users are forbidden to copy the data and redisseminate them, in an original or modified form, for commercial purposes, without the expressed permission of Statistics Canada. Information on the availability of the wide range of data from Statistics Canada can be obtained from Statistics Canada's Regional Offices, it's Web site at http://www.statcan.gc.ca/ and it's toll-free access number 1-800-263-1136.
a The youth crime severity index is only available for provinces, territories and Canada.
b The clearance rate is a measure of the proportion of crimes that are cleared (solved) by the police. An incident is usually considered cleared if the police are able to lay a charge against an individual, but there are other means as well such as referral to a program, warning or citation (in the case of minor offenses) or if the complainant decides not to press charges. The weighted clearance rate takes into consideration the seriousness of the crimes. For example, we would be more concerned with the ability of a police force to solve a murder than a graffiti case. Therefore serious crimes would be assigned higher weights in the rate calculation.
Source: Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics.Copyright: Newfoundland & Labrador Statistics Agency
Government of Newfoundland and Labrador
Data last updated on August 21, 2017