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

[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.