Canada prides itself as a safe and peaceful society for all, but it is not:
- In 2019 there were 2.6 million incidents of violent victimization
- The Canadian homicide rate (1.8) is 50% higher than UK (1.2) and twice that of Germany (0.9)
- The Indigenous homicide rate is six times that for non-indigenous
- One in four homicides are gang related and one in five are committed with a handgun
- The proportion of female victims killed by their intimate partner is eight times that of males
- The rates of domestic violence increased significantly during COVID
More spending on police and prisons will not significantly reduce violent crime
- Canada spends more than $20 billion a year on police, courts and corrections as a reaction to crime.
- Victims suffer more than $50 billion in direct economic losses and pain and suffering.
- Continuing increases in police and prison budgets will not change these realities significantly for victims and communities as shown by national commissions and the experience of increasing expenditures in the US (and also the lack of impact of cutting policing costs by 20% in the UK) – see comparison between Toronto and Chicago for an illustration.[ii]
- More police and prisons disadvantage Indigenous, racialised and equity-deserving communities both because the police and prisons are used disproportionately against them but also because they are not protected by the police and prison system.
Investing in proven prevention will reduce street, handgun and gender-based violence sustainably
Proven prevention that tackles the causes of violence will reduce current unacceptable rates of violent crime, when increases on spending on policing and prisons will not, because scientific studies:
- are widely available internationally from governmental and intergovernmental sources and national scientific commissions, which confirm significant reductions from prevention;[iii]
- identify the investments in effective prevention and the futures of young disadvantaged people, such as outreach to youth, life skill courses, support for parenting, interventions in hospital emergency, and job training; [iv]
- prove prevention is timely, more cost effective[v] and popular;[vi]
- show less victimization is good for Indigenous, racialised and equity-deserving communities and reduces the impact of police and prisons on their lives.[vii]
Successful Implementation of Effective Prevention Must Follow Essentials
Implementation of proven programs requires more than time limited projects. It must follow:
- the essentials for smart planning which are internationally agreed to include diagnosis, planned solutions and monitoring as well as adequate and sustained funding;[viii]
- the planning must be led by a secretariat or violence reduction unit, like Glasgow used to reduce violence by 50% within 5 years and is spreading to big cities like London;
- strategies that curb the impact of violence on Indigenous, racialized, and equity-deserving communities;
- strategies that align with Ontario requirements for municipalities to develop Community Safety and Wellbeing planning, such as for Toronto, but require sustained and adequate funding from other orders of government;
- use of evidence, multi-sectoral efforts, and good planning to which Canada agrees at inter-governmental meetings and so must make happen domestically.
Aspirations to reduce violent crime are not enough
Canada has committed to make the transformations to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals, which include significant reductions in homicides, violent crime. gender based violence, and violence against children by 2030. So it must act now to meet its commitments.
How can next Government of Canada reduce violent crime significantly within 5 years?
Canada will reduce street, handgun, and gender-based violence significantly within five years, if the next Canadian government leads the transformations to tackle the causes of violence. To do this, it must:
- Invest in tackling social and economic conditions that are the cause of violence by increasing the use of programs proven to have reduced violence significantly by allocating $250 million a year for permanent upstream prevention programs in place of $50 million for term projects;
- Raise public awareness and train decision makers in all orders of government on international best practice to reduce violence by allocating $50 million annually for five years;
- Measure and assess outcomes to create a ¨results-oriented¨ culture focused on measurable improvements in feelings of community safety, reduced rates of homicide, fewer victims of intimate partner and sexual violence (measured in surveys), and fewer victims of violence admitted to hospital emergency rooms, by allocating $50 million to Statistics Canada to establish adequate performance indicators and train decision makers;
- Establish a permanent office for violence prevention, reporting to the Prime Minister, to spearhead action across all relevant ministries, in partnership with the provinces, territories, municipalities, and Indigenous Peoples, by adopting legislation to clarify leadership, accountability, and goals.
Investment now is affordable and pays off
The annual cost of these investments is $350 million, which is approximately 5% of what the federal government spends on the RCMP ($5 billion) and Correctional Service of Canada ($2.5 billion). [ix] A 25% reduction in violent crime, including a 50% reduction in homicides (see Glasgow), would achieve savings in policing and prisons in excess of $350 million within 5 years, as well as significant reductions in harm to victims.[x]
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[i] This proposal for the next Canadian government to use scientific evidence and multi-sectoral strategies to reduce street, handgun, and gender-based violence significantly was drafted by Irvin Waller, Audrey Monette and Alex Yeaman.
[ii] See Waller, 2019, pp. 40-46. See also comparisons between Chicago and Toronto in https://bit.ly/3n5G8vn. Chicago and Toronto have similar populations and economic wealth, but Chicago had more than 700 murders in 2020 compared to 70 in Toronto despite Chicago having more than double the number of police officers and located in a State with the incarceration rate 5 times higher than Canada.
[iii] Sources include US Department of Justice, British College of Policing, and the World Health Organization and national commissions– see details Waller, 2019, pp. 23-36.
[iv] See Waller, 2019 for details.
[v] See Waller, 2019, pp. 206-208 and what the public wants in Alberta´s Crime Reduction and Community Safety Task Force. https://open.alberta.ca/publications/9780778569848
[vi] See Waller. 2019, pp. 59-94 and Waller and Monette, 2021. https://bit.ly/3n5G8vn
[vii] Essentials for planning are identified by UN Habitat, World Health Organization and UN Office on Drugs and Crime., Waller, 2019, section 3 and Waller and Monette, 2021, https://bit.ly/3n5G8vn
[viii] Waller, 2019, pp. 126-136.
[ix] 5% was recommended by two parliamentary committees in the 1990´s, including https://preventingcrime.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/HornerReport1993.pdf. The federal government spends approximately $5 billion on the RCMP and $2.5 billion on corrections each year for a total of $7.5 billion. $250 million a year for proven prevention, $50 million for training and awareness and $50 million for indicators makes $350 million a year or approximately the recommended %5.
[x] See Waller 2019, pp 183-200 and https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/pblctns/2015-r022/index-en.aspx#s1
