We’re number 1! (in property crime)
Lock up your condo and hide your car! Just in case this dark wet winter climate isn’t dismal enough, Vancouver is now the property crime capital of North America. According to a recent report break-ins happen here at a per-capita rate FOUR TIMES that of New York City.
Last year, Vancouver recorded more than 1,100 break-ins per 100,000 residents while New York City had just over 300.
The numbers are contained in the annual report by the B.C. Progress Board, which showed Vancouver had the second-highest combined violent and property crime rate among all major cities in Canada and the United States.
Its not all bad news though, we are a very healthy province:
Fewer British Columbians are obese and fewer adults smoke than in any other Canadian province. And B.C. leads the country in life expectancy.
But it’s in the area known as ’social condition,’ which measures everything from poverty to birth weights, that B.C. falls down with a ninth-place ranking among the 10 provinces.
According to the report, the most troubling social indicator was the 17.5 percent of British Columbians living below the low-income threshold, the second-worst ranking in Canada.
The report also notes the situation has not improved at all during the past decade.
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December 18th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
“In October, the West End reported 35 residential break-ins.
But in November, the number climbed to 75, an increase of 111 per cent.
In the first 10 days of December, there were 20 break-ins in the area.”
http://www.canada.com/vancouve.....5c67e9e88d
December 18th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
December 18th, 2007 at 3:19 pm
“Vancouver’s violent crime rate of 391 incidents per 100,000…ahead of Detroit with 716, said the report.”
Oh happy day, to have a violent crime rate still more than half of Detroit’s. Maybe we should compare ourselves to Baghdad instead?
Maybe other cities just arent as good at reporting property crime since they’re so used to it?
One of the more ridiculous attempts to justify the unjustifiable that I’ve seen on any blog, anywhere. Congrats on that.
December 18th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
Yeah? Well I`d rather not.
December 18th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
However, I don’t know if this is “news” so much as the way its always been. I took a few Criminology classes in university, and we were always told that the western side of North America always had more property crime, less violent crime (higher overall crime). Add that to the fact that Canada always has more property and less violent crime than the US, and Vancouver is the “perfect storm” of property crime.
We’ve also been very healthy in the west, probably due to more physical/outdoor activity, and more importance being placed on image (think California/LA) so I guess my point is: tell me something I don’t know.
betablogger, anybody involved in studying crime will tell you that reporting of crime is a huge factor in any statistic. Many US inner cities are much worse than their official stats, which are already bad, due to a total distrust of any form of law enforcement, among other things.
December 18th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
SFU provides a graph here:
http://tinyurl.com/yrk4ru
Conventional wisdom dies hard.
December 18th, 2007 at 3:44 pm
December 18th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
Warren, agreed!
Craig I don’t believe it, anyone can put together a graph, no way is Canadas violent crime rate twice that of the US. There’s something strange going on with reporting is all I can figure.
December 18th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
Its not a binary choice. I’d rather have neither.
There’s really no upside to having the worst property crime rate in North America.
December 18th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
I’m afraid that burying my treasure has in the past been too conspicuous and carrying it with me all the time becomes too taxing.
Does anyone have any ideas where a good place to keep treasure if the banks and my home are not secure?
December 18th, 2007 at 4:52 pm
Extremes of wealth and poverty in Vancouver seem to have trouble written all over it.
December 18th, 2007 at 5:22 pm
It’s also important to look at the trend. Violent crime in the US peaked in the 1970s and has been falling quickly. In the last decade, there has been a roughly 50% fall in violent crime. New York is now safer than Toronto.
But if you look at Vancouver, it has steadily risen up the ranks of crime-plagued cities so that it now ranks number two in North America for its violent/property crime rate.
At the same time, BC’s prison population has bizarrely fallen by 25%, and the city’s drug industry has ballooned. So in all likelihood it will get worse before it gets better.
December 18th, 2007 at 7:37 pm
That’s just wrong. Almost all US metros have a higher murder rate than their Canadian counterparts. For example every Great Lakes US metro has a higher murder rate than Toronto. Rural US does have a lower murder rate than urban Canada, but that’s a bogus comparison. So does rural Canada.
And if you want to blame minorities, I think you will find the white-on-white murder rate in the US is significantly higher than in Canada.
Well I’d rather have a problem with property crime than violent crime anyday.
The problem is that property crime is random, but violent crime is not. Almost all victims of violent crime in Canada are people who associate with the wrong people. However choosing your friends carefully does not protect you from a breakin of your house or car.
December 18th, 2007 at 7:51 pm
Only because there’s not enough left over to eat and smoke after paying mortgage, condo fees, and property tax. And with 40 year mortgages we have to live longer!
December 18th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
The US white homicide rate is about 5 per 100,000. Compare to the total Canadian homicide rate of about 2 per 100,000. And we know that aboriginals in Canada have a much higher homicide rate than the general population. Whether this is true for non-whites in aggregate I’m not sure.
December 18th, 2007 at 8:09 pm
One of my buildings had a breakin in the parking lot last week and 22cars had their windows smashed by thieves. There was no violence because most of the tenants are elderly and I wasn’t there at the time or there would have been a murder.
What Vancouver needs is a vigilante group to bash in the skulls of drug traffickers and to tape shut the mouths of the politcally correct here.
Ah geeee. does this sount to harsh for wimpy Canadians? Well then stop complaining because all of these problems don’t exist in Singapore, Malaysia, Japan and many other civilized countries with high GDP’s. Canadians don’t have to put up with this but they want to, it’s the Canadian way.
Here is Singapore’s solution to one major problem that causes most property crime
December 18th, 2007 at 8:21 pm
December 18th, 2007 at 8:26 pm
December 18th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
December 19th, 2007 at 3:01 am
I think it’s sort of like why the girls are more interested in you when you already have a girlfriend than when you don’t. People go after what appears to be popular.
December 19th, 2007 at 10:05 am
December 19th, 2007 at 10:13 am
I’ll take 6 degrees and rain thanks.
December 19th, 2007 at 10:27 am
Will you take it for 6 dark months in a row?
December 19th, 2007 at 10:31 am
December 19th, 2007 at 11:01 am
No. Please, describe the beauty of Edmonton in winter. Be very graphic.
December 19th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
December 19th, 2007 at 6:25 pm
Who keeps letting these Americans in here anyhow?
All kidding aside I have seen Vancouver go from a backwater which was as close to paradise as one can find in N America to one of the worst places.
The traffic has made this city unlivable as has the crime and drugs. Even Estonia (actually quite a nice place) has zero tolerance for drugs. Isn’t it obvious by now that our politicians are on the take from drug gangs? We can get the RCMP to waste time trying to catch speeders in gridlock and go taser innocent people but we can’t get them to taser drug pushers and grow op owners and leave the juice on?
This city is really disgusting.
Merry Christmas shoppers.
December 20th, 2007 at 9:32 am
m-r, i don’t know about or understand your other posts (on gold &c), but you’re an absolutely clear thinker on Vancouver.
every time the city has had an event like Expo86, where big business with land investments have duped the populace into believing it was a good thing to “show the world what a wonderful place we live in”, it has had a deleterious effect on the quality of life in Vancouver.
It’s irrecoverable, irreversible, unstoppable … it’s past the point of no return.
and the joke is, house prices are inversely proportional to the quality of life!
oh if Lenny Bruce were still alive, he could do a nice show on living in Vancouver! oh man he would be merciless in his satire!