While Thunder Bay saw a 17 per cent drop in crime severity in 2012, the city couldn’t shed its infamous title of murder capital of Canada.
Statistics Canada released its national crime statistics Thursday and Thunder Bay was No. 1 for homicides for metropolitan areas with a population of more than 100,000 people.
“The vast majority of our homicides are between people in very close relationships, very intimate relationships. That’s very difficult to put a prevention piece into place on that,” said Deputy Chief Andy Hay of the Thunder Bay Police Service.
“The only way we can really address those types of homicides is through general crime prevention techniques, which address poverty issues, addictions, alcohol,” said Hay, adding that alcohol and addictions issues are the driving factors of most crime in the city.
Thunder Bay had seven homicides in 2012, giving it a rate of 5.8. Toronto had 80, but it’s murder rate sits at 1.4.
“We have a very small population,” said Hay. “One homicide has a great impact on our homicide rate.”
Winnipeg came in second for murders last year with Regina taking the third spot.
In the crime severity index, which measures the seriousness of reported crimes, Regina was number one with a rating of 116. Saskatoon (107.1) and Kelowna, BC (104.1) round out the top three.
Thunder Bay ranks seventh with a rating of 88, down 17 per cent from 2012. The national rating is 75.
Hay credits the drop in the crime rate to not only enforcement and investigation strategies, but also effective crime prevention.
“We also attribute it to more of a consciousness in our community right now,” he said.
“We now have a crime prevention council which brings all our service partners together at the table. There’s a coordinated response to the factors and issues that affect crime – poverty, alcohol and substance abuse.”
While the improvement in the crime severity index is an encouraging sign the force is headed in the right direction, Hay said there is still work to do and the public will see more initiatives coming forward like the already established Zone Watch and dedicated domestic violence unit.
“This is only the beginning of a strategy to make a safer community,” the deputy chief said, adding he’s hopeful the city will continue to see more turnaround.
“We’re going to monitor the situation very closely. We’re not going to sit back and say we’ve turned things around, things are looking better so we can relax. We’re going to turn up the pressure on this and hopefully we can get our crime severity index down and hopefully around the national average.”
