On proportion

Environics has released its latest poll results on Canadians' views about crime. And for all the law-and-order rhetoric during the election campaign, all indications are that Canadians becoming less and less concerned about the issue over time:

Environics Research has been surveying Canadians on crime and justice for almost 30 years, and the latest data (collected last December in a national telephone survey of more than 2,000 respondents) reveal that Canadians are no more concerned about crime today than at any time in the past three decades.

Reported rates of being personally victimized remain low: Only six per cent of Canadians surveyed report having been a victim of a criminal act in the past six months, matching the lows recorded in our surveys since 1976. Since 2001, such crimes are more likely to be directed at one's property than at one's person.

One in six (15 per cent) Canadians describe crime in their neighbourhood to be a serious problem, the lowest level recorded in more than 25 years. This proportion is slightly higher in some of our major urban centres, but it is also where the decline has been most noticeable. In Toronto, the likelihood of describing one's neighbourhood crime problem as serious declined to 20 per cent from 24 per cent in 1998. In Vancouver the drop is more dramatic: down to 18 per cent from 34 per cent.

Also declining is the fear of walking in one's neighbourhood at night. Twenty-one per cent of Canadians say they ever feel such fear, down from 28 per cent in 2001, and now at the lowest level since Environics began tracking this measure in 1976.

Of course, the declining rates of concern don't suggest for a second that crime should be ignored as an issue. But they do highlight the fact that any changes to Canada's general criminal law should be relatively minor changes which will build on relative success - not a radical and costly overhaul based on a desperate need for change. And if the Cons insist on pushing for such an overhaul, they'll be left to explain to Canadians why citizens should foot the bill to move away from a system that's working.