The Toronto Police Services emblem photographed during a press conference about a high-profile carjacking in 2022.Yes, crime is on the rise in Toronto. But it’s not worse than 2019

Most increases in crime this year appear to simply be trending back to pre-pandemic levels — a time before lockdowns and social distancing.

By Jennifer PagliaroCrime Reporter

Thu., Aug. 18, 20225 min. read

Article was updated 31 mins ago

A shooting in broad daylight in Trinity Bellwoods, the popular Queen West picnic destination, earlier this month may have, to some, confirmed a fear of rising violence in Toronto.

So too, the killing of a student outside a subway station earlier this year by an apparent stranger. Not to mention an increase in violent carjackings.

But the numbers tell a different story. Most increases in crime this year appear to simply be trending back to pre-pandemic levels — a time before lockdowns and social distancing.

“It’s extremely rare to have those types of shooting,” in public, popular places, reminded Julius Haag, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Toronto.

“The fear of crime is a longstanding concern . . . That’s as much tied to emotion or even more so to emotion than it is to objective measures of risk or of crime data.”

So what do the numbers say?

Toronto Police have for several years publicly tracked several categories of crime online, updating the data on a weekly basis. That includes what they call “major crime indicators” — offences like robberies, break and enters and assaults.

In 2019, the total number of major crimes reported peaked at 40,105 — a six-year high — before dipping during the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak to 35,031 events in 2021.

Looking at the number of major crimes to-date in 2022, there appears to be an upward trend so far compared to 2021, but those numbers could flatten by the end of the year. Still, they appear to be on par with the number of incidents at this point in 2019.

“There can be a perception that violent crime is rising when it is not, such as when several high profile incidents take place over a short time period, or if crime is rising in other jurisdictions and people apply those trends locally,” said police spokesperson Stephanie Sayer in an emailed statement.

“As you can see on the data portal, auto thefts have seen a significant spike in 2022, but generally the trends are fairly static.”

Sayer acknowledged the rise in gun violence since 2015.

“That said, shooting incidents have decreased from 2019 and 2020, and our overall solve rates have increased significantly,” she said, adding most shootings are “targeted and isolated.”

The number of shootings — which also include records of firearms being discharged where there may have been no victim — reached a decade low in 2014 at 177 incidents, before spiking into the 400s in 2016, where it has remained. Shootings were down to 409 events in 2021 compared to 462 in 2020. Current levels are on par with 2021.

The actual injuries and deaths resulting from firearms tell a different story. Those tragic numbers reached 2005’s Year of the Gun levels for the first time in 2018 and then climbed to 240 injuries and 44 people killed in 2019 before dropping to 163 injuries and 46 deaths in 2021. The injuries and deaths from shootings to-date in 2022 are also on pace with 2021 levels.

The annual number of homicides generally has also come in waves over the last decades.

There were 64 in 2004, climbing to 86 in 2007 before dipping to the 50s in 2011 through 2015. Killings peaked again at 98 in 2018 — a more than 10 year high in a year that included the Toronto van attack in which 10 people were murdered. The numbers dropped to average levels through the lockdown before rising again to 85 in 2021.

It’s worth also looking at the rate that homicides occur — how many compared to a set population size — to see the trends adjusted for the fact that Toronto has grown at a rapid rate.

Plotting homicide data from Statistics Canada for the Toronto area — which may include cases outside the city’s official boundaries — the rate of killings per 100,000 people between 1981, the first year of data available, and 2021 has continued to trend downwards despite some year-over-year spikes.

Frequent claims by senior police and politicians that Toronto remains a relatively safe city are objectively true when looking at other North American cities like Chicago, where according to that city’s police service there has been 411 murders already this year — nearly 10 times that of Toronto’s cases — and over 1,700 shootings.

Still, crime is felt differently throughout the city, and not just by the typical divides of wealth and race.

As analyzed recently by the Toronto Star, some crime is concentrated in hyper local areas.

Haag, whose work specializes in criminalization and race theory, said crime is not spread evenly across the city, but when events like the Trinity Bellwoods shooting — outside parts of the city labelled as dangerous — happen, people perceive them, and their own safety, differently.

“There’s a racial and spatial dimension to crime and victimization,” he said, noting the most publicized shooting in 2005’s Year of the Gun was that of 15-year-old Jane Creba, a white girl, near the Eaton Centre. Less reported on, were the mostly young Black boys in largely suburban neighbourhoods victimized before her.

“There’s a racialized hierarchy of victimhood,” Haag said, adding some of those injured or killed are perceived by others to have brought it on themselves.

Despite how these perceptions of crime may not align with the data, Haag said those emotions do play an important role in how people believe political actors and police should and do respond.

He said police also play an important role in publicizing potential threats and what the needed response to that risk is, like when they hold press conferences displaying seized weapons, drugs and cash from major operations — portraying what they believe to be an effective use of resources but also presenting a certain message about the threat that exists.

Haag said that often the response to these fears is additional police measures. Advocates against gun violence have repeatedly called for long-term, securely funded measures that would address the root causes of crime and prevent shootings, especially those involving young people.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION

Conversations are opinions of our readers and are subject to the Code of Conduct. The Star does not endorse these opinions.

More from The Star & Partners