The latest numbers show that crime, including violent crime, is up in Winnipeg and that Manitoba as a whole has the highest homicide rate in the country.
Statistics Canada’s annual crime numbers show that Manitoba’s Crime Severity Index is up 3 per cent to 118 incidents per 100,000 people, driven by an increase in robbery (12 per cent) and theft under $5,000 (2 per cent.) The overall crime rate is up 2 per cent.
Manitoba saw the country’s largest homicide rate at 3.51 homicides per 100,000 people. Youth are increasingly making up those who are accused in Manitoba, with the Youth Crime Severity Index at 14 per cent.
People who live in rural Manitoba can expect higher crime rates than in urban areas, to the tune of 42 per cent higher. Rural crime in Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan made up 47 per cent of rural crime in 2017, said the report. The overall rural crime rate in Canada went down by one per cent.
Drunk driving in Manitoba is also up by 5 per cent, but Manitoba the lowest reports of pot offences, at 84 per 100,000 people.
Winnipeg holds the dubious honour of being the violent crime capital of Canada, with a rate of 153.5 violent crimes per 100,000 people, ahead of Thunder Bay with 140.7. Last year’s rate for Winnipeg was 150.
Winnipeg’s homicide rate is 2.96 per 100,000 people, down from 3.14 in 2016.
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