Violent crime up 15 per cent in Kitchener, Cambridge and Waterloo in 2018

This marks the second straight year that there was a dramatic increase in the violent crime rate in Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo.

Statistics Canada released its annual report in police-reported crime statistics on Monday, which says the violent crime rate rose 15 per cent in 2018.

A year earlier, the same figure was up 23 per cent.

With violent crime on the rise, it should come as little surprise that the overall crime rate in the region also tipped upwards.

Statistics Canada’s report says that the crime severity index in the region was up six per cent in 2018 over the previous year.

The crime severity index is measured annually to record changes in crime. It takes into account both the severity of crimes and the number of crimes.

While the national average was up two percent, the province’s rise of six per cent mirrored the tri-cities.

Other local metropolitan areas such as Guelph (up one per cent) and Hamilton (down six per cent) saw a lesser increase or a decrease, whereas others such as Brantford (six per cent) and London (seven per cent) saw similar increases as the Waterloo area.

Overall, police responded to 33,677 incidents a year ago, of which 6,842 were violent incidents.

Included in those violent incidents were seven murders in the region, two more than the previous year.

The increase goes hand-in-hand with the province, which saw 69 more homicides in 2018 than in 2017.

StatsCan says that some of the dramatic increase can be attributed to three outlying events in Toronto: the van attack, the Danforth shooting and the bodies discovered in connection to the serial killings.

WATCH: (July 22, 2019) The Danforth shooting: one year later

The rise in Ontario was in contrast to Canada, which saw the overall homicide rate fall 4 per cent.

While the homicide rate fell nationally, the number of reported sexual assaults (28,700) rose for the fourth consecutive year.

Twenty-eight of 35 census metropolitan areas reported increases, according to StatsCan, a grouping which included Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo.

There was also a 15 per cent increase in the number of reported sexual assaults in the area.

The StatsCan report attributes a portion of the increase to the MeToo social media campaign.

It says, ”the reporting of sexual assaults increased in October 2017 when the #MeToo social media campaign was at its peak, and remained higher throughout every month in 2018.”