Canadian Community Crime Tracker

About the data

• Police service boundaries are provided to the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics (CCJS) by each individual police service in Canada on an annual basis. In order to visually represent these data on a map some modifications have been made to those boundaries in order to align with standard Census (2011) geographies. As a result, readers are cautioned that actual police services boundaries may differ slightly from how they are represented on this map.
• Due to incongruities between police service boundaries and standard census subdivisions (CSD), data for the following police services are not available on the map:
  
  1. Northumberland (Hope), (Ontario) OPP (35093)
  2. City of Kawartha Lakes, (Ontario) OPP (35549)
  3. Cranberry Portage, (Manitoba) RCMP (46757)
  4. High River, (Alberta) RCMP (48721)
  5. Hinton, (Alberta) RCMP (48760)
  6. Strathcona County, (Alberta) RCMP (48767)

Please refer to the UCR Crime Statistics Data tables for this information.

• Police services that are responsible for geographical boundaries with no permanent population are not represented on the map.
• The term rural as included in some of the police service labels indicates the type of police service agreement (contract) which is negotiated between the federal government/provinces and municipalities and is not representative of the total rural areas of Canada.

Crime

• Source: Statistics Canada, Uniform Crime Reporting Survey (UCR), Canadian Centre for Justice Statisitics. For a full description of the UCR, refer to: Survey and statistical programs: Uniform Crime Reporting Survey (UCR).
• For total counts of violations at the Canada, Provincial-Territorial, and police service level, please refer to Statistics Canada data tables.
• Data for unfounded incidents are available for 2017 and subsequent years in order to resume collection that had been halted in 2006 due to inconsistent reporting. To improve comparability, the definition of founded and unfounded criminal incidents was revised in 2017 and any prescribed changes relating to the classification of incidents will be phased in over time starting with the reporting of 2019 data. As such, it is understood that inconsistencies in reporting may still exist in 2017 and 2018. Data may therefore be incomparable across police services. For more information please see the Juristat article "Revising the collection of founded and unfounded criminal incidents within the Uniform Crime Reporting Survey."
• An incident is founded if after police investigation it has been determined that the reported offence did occur or was attempted (even if the charged/suspect chargeable (CSC) is unknown) or there is no credible evidence to confirm that the reported incident did not take place. This includes third party reports that fit these criteria.
• An incident is unfounded if it has been determined through police investigation that the offence reported did not occur, nor was it attempted.
• Data for firearm-related violent crime in Quebec is excluded due to a high proportion of unknown weapons.
• Data for firearm-related violent crime in Saint John, New Brunswick are not available.
• For a list of violations which are included in the total violent crime, non-violent crime, total robbery, total break and enter, and total drug violations categories, please refer to the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) online data tables.
• Total sexual assault includes: sexual assault (level 1), sexual assault with a weapon or causing bodily harm (level 2) and aggravated sexual assault (level 3).
• Total physical assault includes: assault (level 1), assault with a weapon or causing bodily harm (level 2) and aggravated assault (level 3).
• Total cannabis violations includes: possession, trafficking, production and importation and exportation of cannabis.
• The Crime Severity Index (CSI) measures changes in the level of severity of crime in Canada from year to year. In the index, all crimes are assigned a weight based on their seriousness. The level of seriousness is based on actual sentences handed down by the courts in all provinces and territories. More serious crimes are assigned higher weights, less serious offences lower weights. As a result, more serious offences have a greater impact on changes in the index. Please watch this short video for further information: Measuring crime in Canada: A detailed look at the Crime Severity Index.
• The Crime Severity Index is not available for police services or detachments with populations less than 1,000. Data for police services or detachments with populations less than 5,000 should be used with caution.

Population

• Population counts are based on July 1st estimates from Statistics Canada, Demography Division.

Homicide

• Source: Statistics Canada, Homicide Survey, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics. For a full description of the Homicide Survey, refer to: Survey and statistical programs: Homicide Survey.
• Homicide includes Criminal Code offences of murder, manslaughter and infanticide.
• The count of a given year's number of homicides could include incidents that occurred in previous years. Homicides are allotted to the year in which they become known to or are deemed homicides by police, according to the date on the report submitted to Statistics Canada.

Hate crimes

• Hate crimes refer to criminal offences motivated by bias, prejudice, or hate based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation or any other similar factor, such as profession or political beliefs. For more information on the concepts, methods and quality of the data contained in this table, consult the statistical data documentation Uniform Crime Reporting Survey - 3302.
• Includes data from municipal and provincial police services as well as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) covering 99.8% of the Canadian population. Coverage for each province/territory is as follows: Newfoundland and Labrador (100%), Prince Edward Island (100%), Nova Scotia (100%), New Brunswick (100%), Quebec (99.9%), Ontario (99.5%), Manitoba (99.8%), Saskatchewan (99%), Alberta (100%), British Columbia (100%), Yukon (100%), Northwest Territory (100%) and Nunavut (100%).
• Data for previous years are available upon request. For further details, contact the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics at statcan.ccjs-ccsj.statcan@canada.ca (1-800-387-2231).
• Over the past two decades, police services across Canada have continued to advance their identification and reporting of hate crime incidents. Changes in reporting practices can have an effect on hate crime statistics. For example, an increase in the number of hate crime incidents reported can be influenced by the introduction of a hate crime awareness campaign.
• Data for the province of Alberta may include incidents which were investigated and reported by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).
• For a full description of the Uniform Crime Reporting Survey (UCR), please refer to: http://www23.statcan.gc.ca/imdb/p2SV.pl?Function=getSurvey&SDDS=3302
• "Other similar factor" includes motivations not otherwise stated above, such as profession or political beliefs.

Police personnel

Police services boundaries are provided to the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics (CCJS) by each individual police service in Canada on an annual basis. In order, to visually represent these data on the map some modifications have been made to those boundaries in order to align with standard Census (2016) geographies.

Police services that are responsible for geographical boundaries with no permanent population are not represented at the police detachment level but included in the provincial and Canada totals.

The number of police officers reported on the map include the number of permanent full-time equivalent police officers employed on the police service as of May 15, 2018. It does not include non-permanent police officers or recruits.

The number of other police personnel reported on the map include the number of permanent full-time equivalent civilian personnel, special constables and recruits employed on the police service as of May 15, 2018.

Data for Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) and Sûreté du Québec (SQ) are provided at the provincial level only, and not at the detachment level.

Data for rural areas policed by Royal Canadian Mounted Police are not provided in the Police Administration Survey.

Data on the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) that includes personnel assigned to RCMP’s operation and corporate headquarters, training academy Depot division and forensic labs are included at a national level only.

Source: Statistics Canada, Police Administration Survey, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics. For a full description of the Police Administration Survey, refer to: Survey and statistical programs: Police Administration.