City crime rate plunges 30%

Police chief hails reduction in Toronto but as trend emerges across continent no one can pinpoint why
Jul 09, 2009 04:30 AM


Staff Reporter

Four years after the Summer of the Gun, Toronto police Chief Bill Blair is celebrating a nearly 30 per cent overall drop in crime.

"We have experienced crime reduction numbers in this city that are without precedence anywhere in North America," Blair said.

The only areas in which they haven't seen consistent "satisfactory" decreases are some types of violent crime, Blair added, particularly in the number of shootings and homicides.

But compared with this time last year, murder, sexual assault and assault are all down by more than 10 per cent. As of July 4, there were 672 sexual assaults, compared with 796 at the same time last year. There were 8,368 assaults so far this year but 9,412 in 2008.

Break and enters and auto thefts have also declined. The only spike in major crime – and it was a small one at 2 per cent – was in the number of robberies, from 2,142 last year to 2,190 this year.

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