The Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics (CCJS), in co-operation with the policing community, collects police-reported crime statistics through the Uniform Crime Reporting Survey (UCR). The UCR Survey was designed to measure the incidence of crime in Canadian society and its characteristics.
Information collected by the UCR Survey includes the number of criminal incidents, the clearance status of those incidents and persons-charged information. The survey produces a historical record of crime and traffic statistics reported by every police agency in Canada since 1962. The UCR Survey offers information on the nature and extent of police-reported crime and crime trends in Canada, and also provides the federal government with information for policy and legislative development, evaluation of new legislative initiatives, and international comparisons.
The UCR Survey collects information only on those crimes that come to the attention of the police. As a result of this, the UCR data does not contain a count of all crimes in Canada because some crimes are never detected and, of those that are, some are never brought to the attention of the police.
There are more than 1,200 separate police detachments in Canada, and nearly 100 percent of them respond to the UCR Survey each year. In Simcoe Muskoka, data is collected from the following police detachments:
- Barrie, Ontario, municipal
- Collingwood, Ontario, Ontario Provincial Police, rural
- Collingwood, Ontario, Ontario Provincial Police, rural
- Mnjikaning, Ontario, Ontario Provincial Police, rural
- Midland, Ontario, municipal
- South Simcoe (Innisfil), Ontario, municipal
- Orillia, Ontario, Ontario Provincial Police, municipal
- Southern Georgian Bay (Penetanguishene), Ontario, Ontario Provincial Police, municipal
- Nottawasaga (New Tecumseth/Essa/Adjala Tosorontio), Ontario, Ontario Provincial Police, municipal
- Collingwood, Ontario, Ontario Provincial Police, municipal
- Rama, Ontario, municipal
- Barrie, Ontario, Ontario Provincial Police, rural
- Bracebridge/Bala, Ontario, Ontario Provincial Police, rural
- Orillia, Ontario, Ontario Provincial Police, rural
- Southern Georgian Bay, Ontario, Ontario Provincial Police, rural
- Orillia (Headquarters), Ontario, Ontario Provincial Police
- New Tecumseth, Ontario, Ontario Provincial Police, rural
- Huntsville, Ontario, Ontario Provincial Police, rural
- Bala, Ontario, Ontario Provincial Police, rural
Since police jurisdictional boundaries do not align with municipal boundaries, incidents that occurred or did not occur in Simcoe Muskoka may not be fully captured in the UCR data. Also, incidents can occur in Simcoe Muskoka that may not have been committed by Simcoe Muskoka residents (and vice versa). As a result of this, the UCR data provides the count of crimes committed within Simcoe Muskoka’s police jurisdictions, but it does not reflect Simcoe Muskoka’s residents.
For more information on the Uniform Crime Reporting survey, see http://www23.statcan.gc.ca/imdb/p2SV.pl?Function=getSurvey&SDDS=3302.