Crime Drops in Winnipeg – Police Chief Pleased
WINNIPEG – Winnipeg is seeing crime drop. The Chief of Police in Winnipeg spoke at a media conference in the city on Thursday to share the good news.
“Today we are releasing the inaugural edition of the Winnipeg Police Service Annual Statistical Report. Along with the Strategic Plan Report Card, this report replaces the former Annual Report. This report concentrates exclusively on crime data and statistics,” stated the Chief.
The Police in Winnipeg note, “Nationally, we recognise that we will still be quite high in the CMA rankings for homicide rates, violent crime rates and crime severity indices.”
The Chief of Police noted in his opening remarks the power of the media in influencing public opinion, and suggested “that headlines sell papers, drive traffic to websites, and at the end impact the bottom line”.
Perhaps what needs to be examined are the reasons behind the drop in crime.
Statistics Canada released their annual crime severity index on Thursday. Many major Canadian cities saw their overall crime rates drop.
Winnipeg noted findings in the report are follows:
- 3% decrease in overall crimes (23% decrease vs. 5-year average)
- 6% decrease violent crimes (20% decrease vs. 5-year average)
- 3% decrease in property crimes (29% decrease vs. 5-year average)
The overall crime severity index has been dropping since 1982. Part of that is simply an aging population according to many experts. Older people do not, statistically engage in violent crime.
Winnipeg 2012 Crime Statistics Report