Determinants Of Health

Crime

Key Messages
Police-Reported Crimes
Crime Severity Index
Types of Crime
Traffic-Related Crime
Drug-Related Crime
Technical Notes

Key Messages

The overall rate of crime reported to police in Simcoe Muskoka and Ontario have decreased since 2008.
Crime severity in Barrie and area, and in Ontario has decreased since 2008.
Barrie and area had the second lowest crime severity in Ontario in 2018.

Police-Reported Crimes

There was a 40% decrease in the police-reported crime rates in Simcoe Muskoka and Ontario from 2006 to 2018
There was a small increase from 2017 to 2018: this is the first time in over a decade that Simcoe Muskoka, among other areas, saw an increase.

CrimeRate

There were 21,250 police-reported Criminal Code incidents (excluding traffic) in Simcoe Muskoka in 2018. This represented a police-reported crime rate of 3,642 incidents per 100,000 population in Simcoe Muskoka – a 12% increase from 2017.

Crime Severity Index

Overall, crime severity in Barrie and area decreased 35% between 2006 and 2018.
Since 2014, crime severity in Barrie and area and in Ontario has increased slightly.
Among the 15 Census Metropolitan Areas in Ontario, Barrie and area had the second lowest Crime Severity Index in 2018.

CrimeSeverityIndex

In 2018, the Crime Severity Index for Barrie and area was 50.4, which was lower than the provincial Crime Severity Index for Ontario of 60.0. Crime severity in Barrie and area has been consistently lower than Ontario overall since 2007.

Types of Crimes

The two main types of police-reported crime are violent crime and non-violent crime. Non-violent crime includes property crime and other criminal code violations.

The majority of police-reported crimes are property crime violations in Simcoe Muskoka (57%) and Ontario (64%).
The rate of both property and violent crime have decreased over the past decade.
Theft under $5,000 was the most common type of property crime, accounting for 46% of police-reported property crime, followed by mischief (19%), fraud (16%), and breaking and entering (11%).

PoliceReportedCrime

In 2018, 22% of police-reported incidents were violent crime (4,772 incidents), 57% were property crime (12,074 incidents) and other non-violent crimes made up the remaining 21%.

The police-reported violent crime rate in Simcoe Muskoka was 818 incidents per 100,000 population in 2018. This was a small (9%) increase from 2017, but represented an overall decrease of 20% since 2009.

In 2018, there were 12,074 police-reported incidents of property crimes in Simcoe Muskoka, with a rate of 2,069 incidents per 100,000 persons. The rate of property crime in Simcoe Muskoka increased slightly (9%) from 2017, but overall has decreased by 43% in the last decade.

Traffic Violations

Traffic violations include alcohol-impaired driving, drug-impaired driving, and dangerous operation of a vehicle among others.

92% of all impaired driving incidents in 2018 involved alcohol.
The rate of drug-impaired driving in Simcoe Muskoka is nearly twice the provincial rate.

In 2018, there were approximately 1,266 incidents of traffic violations reported by police in Simcoe Muskoka, a 5% increase compared to 2017. Police services in Simcoe Muskoka reported 840 alcohol-impaired driving incidents in 2018, accounting for 92% of all impaired driving incidents (i.e. both alcohol- and drug-impaired incidents).

There were 66 incidents of police-reported drug-impaired driving in Simcoe Muskoka and 942 incidents in Ontario. Simcoe Muskoka’s rate of drug-impaired driving was nearly double the provincial rate in 2018 (11.3 incidents per 100,000 versus 6.6 incidents per 100,000). The rate of drug-impaired driving reported by Simcoe Muskoka police services increased by 6% between 2017 and 2018, lower than the provincial increase of 36%.

Drug-Related Crime

The police-reported rate of drug-related offences in Simcoe Muskoka fell by 17% between 2017 and 2018.

In 2018, there were 762 police-reported drug-related offences under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and Cannabis Act in Simcoe Muskoka, a rate of 162 incidents per 100,000 population. In 2018, there were 739 opioid-related offences in Ontario (rate 5.2 incidents per 100,000) and 33 in Simcoe Muskoka (rate 5.7 incidents per 100,000).

Technical Notes

Statistics Canada collects information on all criminal incidents reported to police through the annual Uniform Crime Reporting Survey (UCRS). There are two complementary ways to measure police-reported crime – the crime rate and the Crime Severity Index (CSI).

As reported by Statistics Canada (2019), police do not report the type of drug associated with the drug-impaired driving incident in the Uniform Crime Reporting survey. As such, it is difficult to determine the impact of cannabis legalization on drug-impaired driving. To address the need for information on opioids, the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics began collecting opioid-related offences (excluding heroin but including fentanyl) separately in November 2017 (Statistics Canada, 2019).

There are a few factors that may impact rates. The ability to determine impairment, changes in legislation, law enforcement practices (e.g. roadside check programs), and changing societal attitudes can impact rates (Statistics Canada, 2018).