How is one to make sense of the substantial decline in crime over the decades? The mysterious contemporary decline of crime regionally, nationally, and globally has become a perplexing enigma to some of the most brilliant minds in the discipline of criminology and criminal justice. Indeed, police-reported crime statistics have demonstrated a staggering decline in reported crime in Canada since the early 1990’s (see Figure 1). Incredibly, the Canadian crime rate is now at its lowest level since the 1960’s, rates of violent and property crime have consistently decreased for more than two decades, and the homicide rate has receded to a 50 year low (Boyce, Carter, and Perreault, 2014; “Police-Reported”, 2014). Therefore, it can be reasonably argued that Canada is safer today than it has been in a generation.
Centre for Public Safety and Criminal Justice Research
