Crime In Canada Research Articles

The Governance of Cybercrime: An Ecological Approach

Cybercrime is now the most common form of crime in Canada and causes significant financial and psychological harm. The criminal justice system struggles to address cybercrime due to its complexity, scale, and global nature. Criminologists are also challenged to think about cybercrime beyond established theoretical frameworks. An interdisciplinary approach is required to understand this phenomenon and enable us to craft effective policies. The discipline of ecology can provide valuable insights and a practical integrative framework through the concepts of community, interaction, and emergent effects. First, a high-level outline is provided of how the cybercrime ecosystem can be analyzed using basic ecological concepts and principles. This framework is then applied to the security community, showing how it is populated with a diversity of organizational and institutional entities that can be enabled or compelled to act in ways that enhance online security through a broad set of regulatory strategies. Finally, three innovative configurations that take advantage of this regulatory pluralism and novel forms of collaboration are described to illustrate how alternatives can be implemented to mitigate the negative impacts of cybercrime with promising outcomes.

Policing the Overdose Crisis

The opioid overdose crisis in Canada continues to claim the lives of people who use drugs (PWUD). Historically, Canadian crime policy has prioritized crime control forms of surveillance, interdiction and punishment in response to drug use. More recently, harm reduction measures have gained traction, including safe consumption sites (SCS) and police officer use of Naloxone to assist PWUD who have overdosed on opioids. The effectiveness of harm reduction efforts, however, is to some degree contingent on their embrace or acceptance by police agencies and officers. This paper is based on research conducted on the two largest city-level police services in Alberta, Canada. We conducted 94 interviews with officers and had 1,406 officers complete a quantitative survey on issues relating to illicit drugs, overdoses, and fentanyl. Our findings show that police officers generally see opioid use as a serious problem and are concerned about the dangers they face when dealing with PWUD. There is also considerable confusion about the nature and severity of these dangers. Even so, attitudes appear to be shifting and some police officers are changing their practices. In general, our research documents a softening of police attitudes in Canada towards SCS facilities and harm reduction more generally. This greater embrace of a public health orientation could improve the lives of PWUD and their interaction with law-enforcement in Canada. Given the prospect that fentanyl and related synthetic opioids will continue their global spread, these findings should be of interest to an international audience of scholars, police, and healthcare officials.

Stumbling from One Disaster to Another: The COVID-19 Pandemic and Mental Health Calls for Police Service across Canada

The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on crime in Canada and internationally. However, less is known about the impact of the pandemic on police-reported mental-health-related incidents. We explore three types of mental-health-related incidents (suicide and suicide attempts, Mental Health Act apprehensions, and mental health [other]) against property and violent crimes, across 13 police jurisdictions in Canada. Despite an international decline in most crime types during COVID-19, we find general stability across police-reported mental-health-related incidents. These findings suggest that the change in social behaviour that reduced opportunities for crime did not have a similar effect on mental-health-related incidents. It also suggests that calls for increased police budgets to respond to expected increases in mental-health-related incidents may be unjustified.

“Stop Resisting or You’re Gonna Get It Again”: Police Use of Force in a Canadian Crime Reality Television Show

Extant research suggests that crime reality television advances biased narratives about offenders, police officers, and the nature of crime. This study contributes to the literature by investigating the prevalence, severity, and proportionality of police use of force in Under Arrest, a Canadian crime reality television show. Using a content analysis of all 65 Under Arrest episodes, research reveals that police use of physical force is portrayed in nearly half of vignettes, and over half of force used is excessive force. Logistic regression indicates that the racial composition of the suspect pool does not predict use of force when controlling for other relevant variables. However, suspect race is the strongest predictor of excessive force even when controlling for initial crime seriousness, gender, suspect intoxication, and weapon possession. Results indicate that Under Arrest contributes to law and order ideology by portraying police use of force as a necessary and justified tool for controlling crime committed by racialized suspects.

Youth crime and depictions of youth crime in Canada: Are news depictions purely moral panic?

Scholars have highlighted the ways media often exaggerate and sensationalize crime in the western world. Nevertheless, it remains unclear whether the media's portrayal of youth crime offers an objective assessment of real-world social problems, a sensationalized reflection of real-world trends, or whether it signals a moral panic surrounding youth crime and violence. The purpose of the paper is to examine newspaper accounts of youth crime in comparison to official youth crime statistics and to determine whether, and to what extent, they align. If they do not align, can the existence of a moral panic be said to influence news portrayals of Canadian youth in conflict with the law?

Why Not Crime Prevention? An Evidence-based Perspective

This paper gives an overview of the literature on effective crime prevention and its implementation. Scientific evaluations of crime prevention projects that tackle risk factors often reveal that they reduce crime and are often more efficient at doing so than standard criminal justice responses. Inter-governmental organizations agree on the critical steps necessary to mobilise relevant agencies to tackle such risk factors. Despite recommendations by parliamentary committees and a growing number of experts, effective crime prevention has not achieved the prominent role that it could occupy in order to more effectively reduce rates of crime in Canada. However, the recent policy announcement by the province of Alberta may offer some ways in which this resistance might eventually be overcome.

Police Violence as Organizational Crime

AbstractThis paper argues that patterns of pervasive police violence can and should be treated as organizational crime in Canada. It uses the documented events of police violence in Val d’Or, Quebec, that emerged in 2015 to show how a similar fact pattern might fit all of the elements of organizational crime as defined in the Criminal Code. The article also suggests that this is an example where legal imagination is important, in order to shift our collective understanding of what organizational crime is and where it occurs.

What do the Rural Folks Think? Perceptions of Police Performance

Abstract Several highly publicized incidents have drawn the public’s attention to the problem of rural crime in Canada, and this focus is appropriate given that rates of rural crime in most provinces are higher than in urban areas. This study reports the results of an examination of urban and rural residents’ perceptions of the police in Saskatchewan, Canada. Controlling for their socio-demographic characteristics, prior victimization, perceptions of crime, and contact with the police, the results of 1,791 phone surveys reveal that rural residents are less likely than their urban counterparts to indicate their police do a good job of enforcing the laws, promptly responding to calls for service, providing them with crime prevention information, ensuring their safety, or cooperating with them to address their concerns. We also found that both urban and rural residents who felt their communities were unsafe or neutral (neither safe nor unsafe) were less likely to indicate the police did a good job in all the seven categories of police performance examined in this research. Implications for rural policing practice and research are identified considering these findings.

Punishing White-Collar Crime in Canada: Issues With the Economic Model of Crime and Punishment

White-collar crime differs from other types of crime in both how the public perceives it and the socio-economic standing of the typical perpetrators. Nevertheless, white-collar crime has significant negative social and economic effects. In formulating deterrents against white-collar crimes, economic models using cost-benefit analyses that fix relative values to fines and incarceration have been influential. However, these economic models are not in keeping with judicial sentencing in Canada and do not accurately reflect current criticisms about the social inequalities associated with fines and incarceration. Economic models contend that large fines reinforced by possible incarceration are the best sentencing deterrent for white-collar crimes in Canada. Yet, as this article argues, a better approach is preventing white-collar crimes through government regulation and corporate structures that eliminate opportunities for criminal conduct.

Attributable fractions for substance use in relation to crime.

AimsBuilding upon an existing methodology and conceptual framework for estimating the association between the use of substances and crime, we calculated attributable fractions that estimate the proportion of crimes explained by alcohol and six other categories of psychoactive substances.DesignCross‐sectional surveys.SettingCanadian federal correctional institutions.ParticipantsCanadian men (n = 27 803) and women (n = 1335) offenders who began serving a custodial sentence in a Canadian federal correctional institution between 2006 and 2016.MeasurementsOffenders completed the computerized assessment of substance abuse, a self‐report tool designed to assess (1) whether the offence for which they were convicted would have occurred had they not been intoxicated from alcohol or another substance, (2) whether they committed the offence to support their alcohol or other substance use and (3) whether they were dependent on alcohol (alcohol dependence scale) or another substance (drug abuse screening test). Offences were grouped into four mutually exclusive categories: violent crimes, non‐violent crimes, impaired driving and substance‐defined crimes. This study focused on violent and non‐violent crime categories. Substances assessed were: alcohol, cannabis, opioids, other central nervous system (CNS) depressants, cocaine, other CNS stimulants and other substances.FindingsAccording to offender self‐report, 42% of all violent and non‐violent crime would probably not have occurred if the perpetrator had not been under the influence of, or seeking, alcohol or other substances. Between 2006 and 2016, 20% of violent crimes and 7% of non‐violent crimes in Canada were considered attributable to alcohol. In contrast, all other psychoactive substance categories combined were associated with 26% of all violent crime and 25% of non‐violent crime during the same time‐frame.ConclusionsAttributable fraction analyses show that more than 42% of Canadian crime resulting in a custodial sentence between 2006 and 2016 would probably not have occurred if the perpetrator had not been under the influence of or seeking alcohol or other drugs. Attributable fractions for alcohol and substance‐related crime are a potentially useful resource for estimating the impact of alcohol and other substances on crime.

"In a Dry Season" - A Police Procedural Novel by Peter Robinson

Genre fiction, also recognized as popular fiction is an umbrella term as it comprises various categories, varieties, and sub-types. On occasion, innovative writers have practiced in mingling these methods and generating an entirely dissimilar variety of categories. In general, genre fiction inclines to place plentiful significance on entertainment and, as a consequence, it leans towards to be more widespread with mass audiences. But currently, writers are lettering beyond mere meager amusement and they are commenting on various socio-cultural issues, resulting in their writing more realistic. Furthermore, various life real things and norms implied in their writing are constructing the entire genre form and all its types more noteworthy and vital. As accredited by literary jurisdiction following are some of the leading classifications as they are used in contemporary publication: Fantasy, Horror, Science fiction, Crime and Mystery Fiction etc. The kind Crime and Mystery Fiction also has various categories for example, Cozy, Hardboiled, The Inverted Detective Story, Police Procedural, etc. In the present paper, Canadian crime fiction writer Peter Robinson’s novel In a Dry Season is studied in the light of this police procedural type of novel writing. The paper aspires to discover various police procedural features employed by the writer.

Victim-Offender Overlap in Violent Crime: Targeting Crime Harm in a Canadian Suburb

Research QuestionTo what extent are victims of violent crime also offenders, and vice versa, with what concentrations of total crime harm across each person who has ever been reported as both a victim and an offender within the study period?DataWe analyse 27,233 unique individuals who were the subject of violent crime reports to the Peel Regional Police Service in Canada, either as offenders, victims, or both, for crimes reported between January 1, 2014, and December 31, 2016. Each individual linked to a violent crime in this period was tracked for the 730 days subsequent to the first crime report naming them.MethodsWe coded each crime with the Canadian Crime Severity Index (CCSI) to calculate victimization and offending harm totals across all incidents for each individual. We then computed each individual’s ratio of total CCSI from victimization to total CCSI from victimization. Based on the distribution of these ratios of CCSI from all offending to all victimization, we show how police can distinguish three categories of victim-offenders (VOs): predominant victims (PVs), predominant offenders (POs), and balanced victim-offenders (BVOs), as well as the single-category absolute offenders (AOs) and absolute victims (AVs).FindingsAcross all 27,233 individuals tracked, 17,138 (64%) appeared first as victims, and 10,095 (36%) appeared first as suspects. Of those appearing first as victims, 997 (6%) are linked to a violent crime as an offender within 730 days. Among those appearing first as offenders, 1019 (10%) are subsequently reported as victimized within 730 days. The total of this combined group (VOs) = 1665 individuals (6% of the entire population). Using a 3.5:1 ratio of victim to offender harm, we subdivide the 1665 VOs further into 322 predominant victims, 280 predominant offenders, and 1063 balanced victim-offenders. The 20% of individuals (n = 5455) with highest harm are linked to 71% of overall harm. On average, predominant offenders (who have also been victimized) are associated with 2.7 times as much harm as absolute offenders, and predominant victims (who have also been offenders) have three times as much harm as absolute victims.ConclusionsThis research shows how combining records of victimization and offending to target higher harm levels with greater potential benefits for police investments in harm reduction and prevention.

Ethical arguments against coercing provider participation in MAiD (medical assistance in dying) in Ontario, Canada

It has historically been a crime in Canada to provide assistance to someone in ending their own life, however, this paradigm was inverted in 2015 when the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) ruled that restrictions on this practice, within certain defined parameters, violated the right to life, liberty, and security of the person. Subsequently, recent legal and policy decisions have highlighted the issue of how to balance the rights of individuals to access MAiD with the rights of care providers to exercise conscience-based objections to participation in this process. We argue that there is significant harm and ethical hazard in disregarding individual and institutional rights to conscientious objection and since measures less coercive than the threat of regulatory or economic sanctions do exist, there should be no justification for such threats in Canada’s health care systems.

A Critical Analysis of Securities Crime in Canada

Canada’s securities markets serve an important function by (a) enabling corporations to buy, sell, trade, or otherwise use securities to generate or maintain capital, and (b) encouraging investors to participate. Protecting these markets from crime is difficult. A dialectical analysis of the decisions, extending orders, orders, settlement agreements, and official news releases from the provincial securities regulators between the years 1986 and 2012 revealed how the opportunities for and the ability to conceal such crimes are created. Institutions, power, and ideology are the underlying concepts used to explain the criminogenic nature of the markets.

What's in a Name? Shifting Identities of Traditional Organized Crime in Canada in the Transnational Fight against the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta

The Italian antimafia authorities have warned Canadian law enforcement about the risks and the growing concerns for the infiltration of clans of the Calabrian mafia, known as ‘ndrangheta, in Eastern Canada. 3 The alarm linked to the rise of the ‘ndrangheta challenges the paradigms of traditional organized crime in Canada, because the ‘ndrangheta is presented as traditional but also innovative and more pervasive than other mafia-type groups. Through access to confidential investigations and interviews of key specialist law enforcement teams in Toronto and Montreal, this article investigates today's institutional perception of mafia – the ‘ndrangheta in particular – in Canada when compared to Italian conceptualizations. I will argue that the changes in narratives in Canada can be read in relation to changes in the Italian identity in the country, moving towards regionalization and specialist knowledge of ethnic differences.

Debunking the Myth of “Not My Bad”: Sexual Images, Consent, and Online Host Responsibilities in Canada

Non-consensual distribution of intimate images has been a crime in Canada since 2015. This article argues that it is time to consider how online platforms, hosts, and fora that allow users to post sexual images either directly engage in criminal acts or incur responsibility to help suppress this illegal activity. Methods for holding businesses responsible for participating in promoting or facilitating this type of wrongdoing by users should vary according to the level of involvement and risk that attaches to a particular online business model. One method applies to businesses that specifically traffic in illegal materials; for these specific “revenge porn” businesses, we should impose direct liability, as we do in other contexts. Another method applies where the nature of the business places it at high risk for facilitating customer illegal activity and where the business profits from that wrongdoing and so faces disincentives to discourage it. The online amateur porn industry more generally falls into this category. In these cases, obligations to assist in rooting out the illegal behaviour of customers via a consent verification system is appropriate. A third method applies to all businesses that host user-generated content where unfettered user activity is less expensive than addressing complaints about content and, thus, constitutes a structural disincentive to respond. Here, mandated response to complaints about non-consensual pornography is appropriate. The article argues that while freedom of sexual expression, policies protecting intermediary immunity, and online anonymity are important and complicate solutions to this lucrative traffic in sexual images, finding principled solutions is not impossible.

Homicide in Canada and the crime drop

In contrast to the Canadian crime drop of the 1990s, homicide appeared as an anomaly with a peak in the 1970s. Yet previous studies tend to refer only to completed homicides, and here we also include attempts. The resulting trend is remarkably similar to that in Canadian property crime for five decades. This seems unlikely to be a coincidence and we speculate about a causal link.

Near Repeat Space-Time Patterns of Canadian Crime

Previous research has found that targets located in close proximity to previously victimized targets are at an increased risk of also being victimized. However, this elevated risk of near repeat victimization appears to be temporary and subsides over time. Near repeat victimization has rarely been examined using Canadian data, and exact space-time patterns have been shown to vary by location. Thus, the current study helps to address a gap in the research by determining the exact near repeat space-time clustering of three crime types (burglary, theft from a motor vehicle [TFMV], and common assault) across three Canadian cities (Edmonton, Alberta; Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan; and Saint John, New Brunswick). The results demonstrate significant near repeat space-time clustering for Edmonton burglary, Edmonton TFMV, and Saint John TFMV, with the exact space-time pattern varying from one data file to the next. The implications of these results, as well as some limitations and directions for future research, are discussed.

Critique of the RCMP's Firearms and Investigative Services Directorate (FIESD) 2014 Annual Report

The RCMP has abandoned the traditional definition of a and now relies on a new definition that adds administrative crimes to the traditional criteria that required the firearm to be used or suspected of being used in a violent crime. The new definition includes firearms confiscated from citizens who committed paper crimes, such as allowing their firearms permit to lapse, as well as including guns, which includes firearms confiscated by police that are abandoned, such as those found at the residence of a suicide. Another somewhat misleading term, related is also used in conjunction with gun. A gun-related crime is one where a gun was found at the crime scene. The firearm need not have been used to commit the crime, just found at the scene. This means that any crime at the residence of a hunter, target shooter or gun collector is automatically classified as a related whether violent or non-violent; even if the firearm remained locked up in a safe. These two terms allow Canadian police agencies to make misleading claims, e.g., It is a fact that the majority of gun related crimes in our communities are committed with guns that are domestically sourced. This statement contrasts with research that found smuggling to be the primary source of guns used in violent crime in Canada.

The ‘Frozen’ Heart of the Continent: Place-Myths and Winnipeg in Canadian Crime Films

Within Canadian national cinema, audiences view places that draw attention to the shared experience of being within these geopolitical, socio-spatial locations. This paper contends that crime films set in Winnipeg, a city situated in the centre of North America, reflect and contribute to the cultural identity of the city within the national imaginary. Place-myths have the potential to construct meanings about a particular place, indicating whether it is romantic or dangerous, progressive or “backward,” vibrant or decaying. While currently branded by local civic boosters as the ‘Heart of the Continent,’ (Kives, 2008) the construction of Winnipeg-as-place on film tells a different tale. By implementing a qualitative media analysis, we argue that place-myths manifest themselves within Canadian crime film narratives, and that a better understanding of place allows us to observe how Winnipeg becomes socially spatialized onscreen. As our paper suggests, one’s sense of space can only constellate when one’s experiences of being and acting within a place is taken into account. Winnipeg ultimately becomes represented on film as a place where crime is rampant and law enforcement is unable to combat the criminal behaviour within the city—in other words, where law and justice is ‘frozen.’ Dans le cinema national canadien, les auditoires vont associer les lieux avec leur propre experience de ces emplacements geopolitiques et de leur espace social. Cet article soutient que les films policiers qui se deroulent a Winnipeg, une ville situee au centre de l’Amerique du Nord, refletent et contribuent a forger l’identite culturelle de la ville au sein de l’imaginaire national. Les mythes lies aux endroits ont le potentiel de construire des significations autour d’un lieu specifique, indiquant si cet espace est romantique ou dangereux, progressif ou « retrograde », anime ou deserte. Meme si des representants de Winnipeg vont qualifier la ville de « cœur du continent » (Kives, 2008), sa construction imaginaire au cinema raconte une autre histoire. Par la mise en œuvre d’une analyse qualitative des medias, nous soutenons que les mythes des lieux se manifestent dans les trames narratives des films policiers canadiens, et qu’une meilleure comprehension des lieux nous permet de constater comment l’espace social de Winnipeg a ete presente a l’ecran. Comme notre article le suggere, notre perception de l’espace ne peut s’exprimer pleinement que si nous experimentons concretement et agissons dans celui-ci. Winnipeg devient finalement represente au cinema comme un endroit ou le crime est a la hausse et les organismes d’application de la loi incapables de combattre les comportements criminels dans la ville – en d’autres mots, ou la loi et la justice sont « immobiles ».