Homicide study sheds light on Edmonton murders

EDMONTON – The Edmonton Police Service (EPS) hopes a new study, which sheds light on homicides in the city, will help prevent future violence.

An Edmonton psychologist examined the characteristics surrounding 124 concluded homicide cases that occurred between 2007 and 2012.

Dr. Sandy Jung, an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at MacEwan University, probed several aspects including the time of day, location, relationships between victim and offenders, and the type of weapon used.

One of the findings that stood out to police was that in 57 per cent of the homicides studied, a knife — or “edged weapon” — was used. The next most commonly used weapon was a handgun, which was used in 25 per cent of the homicides.

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Edmonton Police Chief Rod Knecht says it’s very hard to determine why knives are used in the majority of homicides.

“Is it the availability of a knife? Just the fact that it’s there? And some of those homicides, they’re not premeditated. They’re… homicides of circumstance, where people are drinking and there’s a knife available. It’s the weapon that is available, so that’s what’s used.”

Knecht says while police can’t ban knives, these findings are helpful and there are steps that can be taken by police.

“I think knives in a licensed establishment, probably not a good thing,” he said. “If someone’s got a knife on their hip in a licensed establishment, maybe there’s some steps we can look at there.

“You can’t outlaw knives. You’ve got to focus on the criminal behaviour and the criminal. And that’s where we, as a police service, have to focus.”

Another finding was that nearly 60 per cent of the homicides researched took place in a private residence, with 33 per cent of those occurring in central Edmonton.

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Time of day was also looked at, with nearly half of the homicides taking place in the morning, between the hours of midnight at 7 a.m.

But perhaps the fact that stood out most to police involved education and employment. According to Jung’s research, nearly 80 per cent of victims, and just over 86 per cent of offenders did not complete high school.

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“I found that very surprising. I didn’t realize that such a high number had not finished high school,” said Staff Sergeant Bill Clark with the EPS Homicide Unit.

“Most of these people are unemployed. Most of these people are uneducated or low levels of education,” added Knecht. “Those are the kinds of things that we can concentrate on. It tells us that we, from a prevention perspective, have got to focus on youth.”

Clark agrees that prevention has to start at a young age, and he believes it has a lot to do with family dynamic.

“If people are brought up in a good family environment, they attend school, they complete school,” he said, “if you have that loving family support, you’re doing the right things, you’re involved in the right activities, you’re more apt to stay away from the drugs, you’re more apt to stay away from that bad crowd.”

Police say the findings of Jung’s research are going to be extremely helpful in overall crime prevention in Edmonton.

“I think the service as a whole with the violence reduction strategy is looking at these results and going, ‘Okay, these are areas we need to focus on. Let’s try to get rid of some of the drinking, the homeless problems, that type of thing.’ And hopefully we will see a reduction in violent crime, not just homicides, but violent crime overall,” said Clark.

For more information on Jung’s research, visit the Edmonton Police Commission’s website.

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