2. Typologies and Patterns of Crime
2.3 Violent Crimes: Definitions and Patterns
Dr. Jon Heidt
Homicide
Homicides tend to be among the most well-reported types of crime (Nivette, 2011). After all, at least one person will usually notice and care if someone vanishes. Because homicides are usually reported, they are less likely than other types of crime to be susceptible to the dark figure of crime (Tonry, 2004). The dark figure of crime refers to the number of crimes that are uncounted because nobody notices or reports them. For example, a stroll through downtown Vancouver at any time of the day will reveal a great deal of unreported drug crime—there are obviously many cases of drug possession and trafficking that go unnoticed and unreported because both participants in the crime are willing parties. In other words, a “criminal” act is not necessarily a “deviant” act if it is typical, “normal” behaviour among the local population.
Homicide is usually associated with murder in everyday conversation and in television and movies. However, it is important to remember that homicide is an umbrella term that refers to one human killing another, while murder is a specific type of intentional homicide. The Criminal Code of Canada identifies several levels of murder that are sorted according to the offender’s culpability and intention to do harm. First degree murder is planned and deliberate, whereas second degree murder may be intentional, but it lacks the element of pre-planning and may occur in the heat of the moment. Manslaughter is non-intentional homicide resulting from intoxication, recklessness, or negligence (e.g., two people in a bar get in a fight and one kills the other by accident).
In 2019, the homicide rate in Canada was 1.8 per 100,000 population (Moreau et al., 2020), an increase from 1.78 in the previous year; however, it is worth noting that this rate is still relatively low if rates over 30 years are examined. In 1993, the homicide rate was about 3.75 per 100,000 population (Roy & Marcellus, 2018). The overall homicide rate reveals little about trends among types of victims. In 2019, police reported 174 Indigenous victims of homicide, an increase from 141 in 2018. This represents a rate approximately six-and-a-half times higher than the rate for non-Indigenous homicide victims (8.82 homicides per 100,000 compared to 1.34 per 100,000 population) (Moreau et al., 2020).
In Canada, the Western provinces tend to have higher rates of violent crime and homicides compared to Eastern and Maritime provinces (Trussler, 2010). There are no conclusive explanations for why crime rates are higher in the West, and little research has been done in this area (Andresen, 2009). A mundane factor may simply be the weather—as one goes west, temperatures become milder, and winters are less harsh, enabling more opportunities to commit crime (e.g., more people leave their homes unoccupied in warmer weather, increasing opportunities for burglary). Some scholars ar