Dirty Old Town

[pyat]

My hometown, Hamilton, is the 8th largest city in Canada, with a 2001 population of 490,284. Last night, there was a hostage taking, murder, and subsequent suicide just a dozen or so houses down the street from me.

Hamilton has a reputation as a dangerous, grimy place. While I won't argue the grime, I question the crime. And that was a rhyme.

So, let's crunch the numbers! These are the 2004 crime stats for all cities in Canada larger than 100,000. Numbers are "per 100,000 residents".

Crime rates for selected offences by census metropolitan area
	Homicide	Robbery	Break-ins	Motor vehicle theft	Total Criminal Code Offences
	2004 rate*	2004 rate*	2004 rate*	2004 rate*	2004 rate*	% change in rate 2003 to 2004*
CMAs with population of 500,000 and over
Winnipeg1	4.9	229	1,124	1,932	12,167	1.9
Vancouver	2.6	148	1,325	1,104	11,814	0.2
Edmonton	3.4	141	1,129	1,018	11,332	3.0
Montréal	1.7	150	894	663	8,173	2.7
Calgary	1.9	91	815	457	7,101	-3.2
Hamilton	1.3	88	680	540	5,764	-13.0
Ottawa2	1.1	84	578	316	5,663	-10.0
Quebec	0.8	59	783	277	4,997	-0.9
Toronto	1.8	103	449	325	4,699	-8.6
CMAs with population between 100,000 and 500,000
Regina	5.0	211	2,112	1,351	15,430	2.4
Saskatoon	3.3	209	1,797	590	13,767	-9.1
Abbotsford	4.4	97	1,390	1,529	13,252	-1.2
Victoria	1.5	76	935	336	10,309	-2.2
Halifax	2.4	161	957	540	9,924	5.0
Thunder Bay	0.0	85	865	323	9,226	8.2
Windsor	1.2	70	922	455	7,676	4.0
London	1.1	70	732	611	7,335	-3.0
Saint John	0.7	63	679	135	7,056	-8.3
Kingston	0.0	49	647	233	7,010	2.6
St. John's	0.6	50	1,149	325	6,787	4.2
St. Catharines–Niagara	1.6	63	737	354	6,222	-9.0
Greater Sudbury/Grand Sudbury	0.0	41	851	489	6,188	-4.7
Sherbrooke	0.0	49	855	526	6,094	-9.0
Gatineau3	0.4	59	928	304	5,909	-4.9
Kitchener	1.3	80	738	459	5,887	-0.2
Trois–Rivières	0.7	45	692	367	4,787	-9.9
Saguenay	1.3	18	542	337	4,079	-2.4
* Rates are calculated per 100,000 population. 1. Crime data from April to December 2004 for Winnipeg are estimates (except for homicide and motor vehicle theft) due to the implementation of a new records management system. 2. Ottawa refers to the Ontario part of the Ottawa–Gatineau CMA. 3. Gatineau refers to the Quebec part of the Ottawa–Gatineau CMA.

What's this, dear readers? Do I see Hamilton boasting a substantially lower crime rate than almost all other cities of a similar size in Canada? And marking the largest decrease in total criminal offenses? Do I see Toronto with higher homicide and robbery rates? In fact, the homicide rate in Hamilton is lower than that of Honolulu

Hamilton, it seems, compares very favourably with all other major cities in Canada, some of which have property values considerably higher than that of my gloomy industrial city. What the heck is going on in Saskatchewan, though? Farmer uprising?

For the sake of interest, let's look at the 2005 city homicide rates down in the U.S.A.

Compton, Calif. 67.1
Gary, Ind. 58.0
Birmingham, Ala. 44.3
Youngstown, Ohio 43.7
Baltimore, Md. 42.0
Camden, N.J. 41.2
Flint, Mich. 40.1
Detroit, Mich. 39.3
Richmond, Calif. 38.8
St. Louis, Mo. 37.9
Trenton, N.J. 36.2
Washington, DC 35.4

Kind of depressing, really, but then that's the 12 worst. I think Compton technically counts as a revolution in progress, doesn't it? Anyway, let's skip way down the list, to #75.

Minneapolis, MN 12.5
Peoria, Ill. 12.4
Pueblo, Colo. 12.4
Rockford, Ill. 12.4
Lancaster, Calif. 12.3
North Las Vegas, Nev. 12.2
Yakima, Wash. 12.2
Bellflower, Calif. 11.9
Springfield, Mass. 11.9
St. Petersburg, Fla. 11.8
Columbus, Ga. 11.7

...and so on to #100.

Newport News, Va. 10.8

The U.S. national rate in 2005 was 5.6 murders per 100,000 people. Canada was 1.9 in 2004. Hamilton was 1.3.

While gathering these stats, I was interested to discover that, while the UK has a very low homicide rate, it's overall violent crime/robbery rates are just about the highest in the first world. From the Telegraph:

According to the comparison of international crime statistics produced by the UN's Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, England and Wales had 9,766 crimes for every 100,000 people in the year 2000. America had 8,517, South Africa 7,997, Germany 7,621 and Russia 2,022.

New Zealand and FINLAND of all places, are higher.


Rule, Britannia!

Comments

[freifraufischer.livejournal.com]

Well... you know... if I had to live with hobbits... I might be violent too.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

It's like they say... Munchkinland only has a few dozen inhabitants.

But they need a full-time coroner.

[hawksley.livejournal.com]

it really REALLY pisses me off when people from regina talk about how hamilton is a dirty, nasty place.

clearly they haven't fucking taken a look around.

What the heck is going on in Saskatchewan, though? Farmer uprising?

the population of regina is over half native american and over half low income and living on welfare. does that answer your question?

macleans recently named a neighbourhood about a 10 minute walk from my house, and where i spent much of my childhood, as the worst neighbourhood in canada. you should read the article, it's pretty shocking.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Is the MacLeans article online, do you know?

[hawksley.livejournal.com]

not entirely sure but i can find it and scan it in later tonight if you don't find it first

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Danke, cathead!

[racing-girl.livejournal.com]

I read that. I found it interesting that they mentioned that the B&Es in that area included stealing food from people’s fridges. These are obviously desperate people.

I also noted the MacLean’s this week had a head line of "We fixed Regina!" I haven't read it yet, but I hope that they're not claiming that they are responsible for any changes that may happen... I'll really get my panties in a knot and I just might have to write a stern letter...

I’m finding them rather annoying these days. Along the same lines as the Toronto Star, some of it is interesting but not always fact…

[brand-of-amber.livejournal.com]

Actually in B&Es raiding the fridge is pretty common all over. Now, if they're stealing food primarily, or taking everything out of the fridge, that is a sign of desperation. But taking your turkey, Ben and Jerrys and anything alcoholic is pretty much par for the course in B&Es.

In America at least. To be specific, LA.

I think this might be it... :)

[melstra.livejournal.com]

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/08012007/21/canada-s-worst-neighbourhood.html

Re: I think this might be it... :)

[pyat.livejournal.com]

That's incredibly depressing.

Re: I think this might be it... :)

[pxtl.livejournal.com]

O.O

I had no idea that Canada had it's very own Detroit.

Icky.

[dagoski.livejournal.com]

When looking at US homicide rates, there are a couple of things to keep in mind abut the worst cities. Compton, just a few miles from my hometown, and Camden are collpased cities. There is no real government on the local level in either and the counties and states don't really want to step in. Compton is not really a revolution in progress, it's a Somalia type anarchy. Actually, Gary, Detroit and Baltimore fall into that category. You're looking at places where there are no jobs to be found and where anyone who had the means moved out long ago.

What surprise me about the US city list is how many murders Lancaster, CA had. For those who don't know, Lancaster is this little town in the high desert outside of LA. The only thing out there is a USAF base and the Lockheed Skunk Works which was located there primarily because it was in the middle of nowhere.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

For those who don't know, Lancaster is this little town...

If it's a small place overall, then even a few murders can send it shooting up in the rankings. A town with a population of 10,000 that had one murder every three months would have annual homicide rate of 40.

[tanela.livejournal.com]

But a population of 10,000 killing one of themselves every 3 months is still pretty disturbing. o_o

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Granted! But if it was only one year, it could be taken as a weird aberration - like, if a big employer closed down, causing lots of stress. Or, perhaps a gang of crooks had moved into the city and had a falling out. It would not mean it was unsafe to walk the streets, by any means.

[dagoski.livejournal.com]

As I noted below, the whole Inland Empire is going from being this chain of isolated desert communities to LA's newest exurb. So crime rates are going up as city people bring their problems with them as they try to flee those same problems.

I know Inland Empire sounds like a nation state from Rifts, but that's the name for the area east of the Metro LA.

[dagoski.livejournal.com]

This is very true. If you look at the crime states for the entire Inland Empire, they're sort of distorted these days. Indland Empire is the name for this vast hemisphere of land East of the Metro LA area. Used to be you had farms and desert out there, but past several years it's become an exurb of LA and has begun to have some of its problems. Specifically, conflicts over the drug trade. A lot of meth-amphetamine has always come out of the area along with PCP. The producers favored the region because there wasn't anyone out there to bug them. I doubt you'll ever find this in the literature, but it's one of those things everyone knows(even if it turns out not be true). However, more people are now trading in meth in the same area, so it could be the crime rate exploded from nothing to something small.

[brand-of-amber.livejournal.com]

Lancaster, where I lived for like 8 years (while working in Compton and Inglewood or going to school at various LA campuses), is the current home of a huge meth production industry, a nexus point for various white-power and skin head gangs, and a major area for urban development relocation where troubled inner city families are moved out of the city to get a new start.

The result is that most of "central" Lancaster is pretty safe (though I once did get into a fight with skin heads at Toys R Us that almost landed me in jail), but the outskirts (past, say, 50th east or so along J & K) get increasingly rough, and there is a lot of criminal activity outside the incorporated areas of town.

Hell, once after a break down of my car out in the boonies I got picked up by some Black Peace Stones up from LA. They took me to the local biker bar and gave me a quarter to call a tow-truck. Fun times.

Its also worth noting that Compton is one of those places that both looks, feels, and is dangerous. (Though its really less third-worldy than the media tends to paint it. Much of the time it really is just a neighborhood.) OTOH, I've been in legitimately dangerous areas in other parts of LA, Chicago, and Toronto that were crime centers, but seemed so pleasant that my radar didn't go off at the time. Only after getting home and doing research did I find out that they were major mugging, carjacking, and gang centers.

So maybe that's Hamilton's problem? Not that it really is dangerous, but that it somehow feels or looks hostile to outsiders?

[dagoski.livejournal.com]

Man, that must have been one hell of a commute. But, yeah, that squares with what I read about the changes in the area.

Meanwhile, the rough areas in LA County are strange compared to the same kind of areas back east. So in Compton and similar places you'll see these houses with manicured, but dried out lawns. Not a whole lot of trash laying around either. You think it's okay til you notice the bars on all the windows. But, man, here in Philly there is no mistaking the Bad Neighborhood^TM. I am continuallly astonished at how completely bombed out many, sometimes it seems like most, neighborhoods are out here.

[brand-of-amber.livejournal.com]

No shit. Compton houses are crackerboxes, but they're houses. Some east coast cities bad parts of town look like a post-holocaust warehouse district.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Totally off topic, but Don at 3AM sez he's been emailing you and wondered if you'd got them.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Um, wow. That means even fairly safe cities in the U.S. have murder rates that are ten times or more the murder rate in Hamilton. Wow.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

More or less, though remember that I was pasting numbers from the 100 highest rate list. There are also lots of cities in the US with lower homicide rates, mainly in the NE states.

[paka.livejournal.com]

This basically confirms my belief that Vancouver is damn close to paradise on earth, you realize. Place is like LA and SF all rolled into one and it still has comparatively low crime rates. This is where I stop myself before I start obsessing about the rate of 24 hour eateries per 100,000 people.

But dude, what's up with Winnipeg?

[pyat.livejournal.com]

The deal-breaker for Vancouver is the cost of housing, which is bloody stratospheric, at least for Canada.

Winnipeg is the only large city in Manitoba, and as such it's the natural magnet for unemployed people seeking work, for goverment services, cheap housing, etc. The poverty rate is quite high as a result.

[(Anonymous)]

>While gathering these stats, I was interested to discover that, while the UK >has a very low homicide rate, it's overall violent crime/robbery rates are just >about the highest in the first world.

Yep, pretty much. Welcome to the UK, the land of crips, lager and drunken fights every saturday night, ASBOs, crime and chavs. It's even worse when you read/see stories such as the UK's prisons are almost full, and one paper which carried a headline saying "John reid's brain is missing" and carried a phone number to ring if you see his (John reid being the UK home secretary) brain :) !

SP

[slothpuck.livejournal.com]

Meh, sorry I forgot to log in, so an entry might appear as anonymous :( . But yes I think you're right there -- welcome to the UK, the land of crips, lager, drunken fights every saturday night, chavs, ASBOs and crime. It's even worse when you read things like the UK's prisons are almost full up and illegal immigrants aren't deported. Even more bizarre is when a national newspaper (not I have any love for it) carries the headline "John Reid's brain is missing" and proceeds to publish a phone line should anyone find the offending item (John reid is the UK Home secretary).

SP

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Of course, if you listen to the crazed NRA gun-nuts that infest the US, the reason for the UK's high violent crime rate is the lack of guns in the hands of the populace.

[sixteenbynine.livejournal.com]

NYC itself has seen a plunge in crime across the board over the last couple of decades, although the exact reasons for that aren't clear. One reason which has been posited and which seems to make sense is stronger community-level policing (i.e., neighborhood watches, youth groups, etc.). Harlem is nothing like what it used to be, for one, and even the not-very-good neighborhoods I lived in are markedly safer now.

The most cynical reason for all of this may simply be that NYC is far too expensive to live in for most people, and that if you live there, you're not apt to commit much petty crime to begin with.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Apparently a lot of US cities saw a similar drop in recent years. The author of Freakanomics has suggested that the legalization of abortion in 1972 might be the big reason. Fewer babies born into poverty meant fewer crimes committed 17-20 years later.

[sixteenbynine.livejournal.com]

That's a theory I've wondered about -- but it's virtually impossible to establish causation (as opposed to correlation) with such a theory. It's very post-facto reasoning to me.

I should say that when I lived in the city, I never felt unsafe. I was unnerved by some individual people who may have been hanging around, but I didn't feel like I was in danger if I stepped outside at 2AM. That and I was able to park my car on the street without incident.

[brand-of-amber.livejournal.com]

I also don't know if it actually correlates to the facts. Does Census data show a decrease in children born into poverty or at-risk neighborhoods? Or is it just an assumption based on the 'fact' that poor people get lots of abortions?

[pyat.livejournal.com]

This page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legalized_abortion_and_crime_effect) summarizes the debate!

[brand-of-amber.livejournal.com]

Interesting.

However, given the number of criminals with children I've known, I'm not giving the most recent round any more credit than I gave the last one.

[brand-of-amber.livejournal.com]

Especially when you look at US economics data that shows that the 90s periods in question all had drops in the poverty rate in general, due to boom year economies and governmental adjustments to what poverty meant.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Yep. The debate covers that on both sides, too.

I'm not saying I believe it, but the people behind the theory also took into account several other possible explanations.

[neebs.livejournal.com]

As former Mayor Marion Barry once said (before being exposed as a crack addict by a prostitute) "Except for the murders, DC has one of the lowest crime rates in the country."

Sorry, just had to throw that out there, it amuses me so greatly!

[brand-of-amber.livejournal.com]

This reminds me, the year I moved to Toronto I did a comparison of murder rates in Toronto and LA. That year there were over 1000 murders in the LA area, and about 50 in Toronto. OTOH, something like 9 of the Toronto murders were done with a machete, where only 1 in LA was.

So you're 20 times more likely to get killed in LA, but 9 times more likely to get murdered by machete in Toronto.

[kesmun.livejournal.com]

Your comment started off a weird train of thought that culminated in wondering what the likelihood of being killed by spoon was in medieval Nottingham...

It's actually funny, because I have a few friends (EQ guildies) who live in modern Nottingham.

Hmm

[pxtl.livejournal.com]

I'm more curious about the likelihood of being killed by the Jewel of Judgement after your hometown is rescued by simians armed with polish-powered SMGs.

/nerd who digs the nick