Crime is a top Alberta election issue — but the issues facing Canadian cities run deep
Criminologist says Albertans are much safer than they were in the 1990s
A man was fatally shot last month outside a busy Safeway grocery store in Kensington, a trendy walkable district in northwest Calgary with plenty of coffee shops, restaurants and retail stores.
Ian Cameron was shopping at the grocery store when the incident happened. He told CBC News at the time that "this stuff is happening way too much right now. We seriously need to do something about this."
Other violent incidents across the province have been widely shared on social media, like a shooting on a Calgary bus. In Edmonton, the number of calls to police about violent crime on the city's transit system increased nearly 53 per cent in 2022 compared to the year before.
"I don't know what the exact reason is for so much crime and so sudden in the last month," Cameron said, adding he had recently purchased a car to avoid taking public transit in Calgary as often as he had been.
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The day after the shooting outside the Safeway last month, Calgary police Chief Mark Neufeld said he was "disgusted" by the incident.
But the police chief wanted to draw a distinction.
"I want to reassure Calgarians that Calgary remains a safe city," the chief said.
He pointed to the crime severity index (CSI), one of the tools that Statistics Canada uses to measure crime and to track the volume and severity of what's reported. It hadn't changed much, he said.
That's true. In Calgary and across the province, the CSI is still down from its peak in the late 1990s, though recent spikes have been reported.
Shooting and homicides have also decreased compared with the same time last year, Neufeld noted. That might not track with what has been showing up in headlines, the chief said.
As of Tuesday, there had been 43 shootings in Calgary, compared to 61 during the same period last year. There have been seven homicides so far this year, compared with 12 in 2022.
When it comes to the data around crime in the province, it's a bit of a mixed bag. And the picture in Calgary isn't the same as what the police force is reporting in Edmonton.
But criminologists say the perceptions of crime that residents pick up from headlines — and from politicians who frequently raise concerns about crime — do actually raise the fear of crime within communities, which has been tied to negative impacts to physical and mental health.
"We have to remember that even today, with crime rates where they are, we are much, much safer in terms of being a victim of a crime than we were in the 1990s," said Mount Royal University criminal justice professor Doug King.
There's no question there are challenges tied to crime in this province, and opportunities for reform. But experts question whether we're missing the deeper picture here, one that could help to eventually bring down crime rates for good.
A tale of two cities
In Calgary and Edmonton, both police forces say they're focused on the issue of violent incidents in public spaces. But Edmonton police, in recent months, have also reported new figures they've called concerning.
That included the service's own 2022 data, released April 21, ahead of the rest of the province. The data indicated the CSI rate had risen nine per cent from the previous year. Statistics Canada said the Edmonton CSI data was sourced from the police force's own internal data and subsequent calculations.
In particular, the EPS says it is concerned about a sharp increase in the number of violent incidents occurring in downtown Edmonton neighbourhoods and on transit, and an increase in the use or presence of weapons.
It's a tale of two cities, said King, with crime appearing to be on the rise in virtually every category in Edmonton.
"It's really clear that Edmonton has a problem in the downtown core," he said.
Calgary's police chief has said the recent spate of violent incidents in public places has spurred a heightened awareness of crime.
"I think that's driving some of the perception around what's going on," Neufeld said.
Calgary's rate of violent crime reached a low in 2013, but has gone back up since that point. Statistics Canada says police-reported crime statistics for 2022 will be released July 27.
Calgary has also been paying close attention to the varying nature of what's referred to as "social disorder."
That term entered the lexicon a few decades ago, King said, to capture more of the activities police were involved in, beyond laying criminal charges.
"It's very much a part of the idea of community-based policing, that the police are much more than law enforcement," he said, noting it doesn't necessarily mean officers have the skills or training to deal with the changed world of 2023.
Growing economic and social inequality
When it comes to an increase in violent crime across the country, the issues aren't unique to Calgary and Edmonton. Violent incidents on public transit and in other public spaces have frequently emerged as issues for jurisdictions across Canada in recent months.
Though the increase of such incidents hasn't necessarily been dramatic, it has been significant, said Toronto criminology professor Scot Wortley.
But that is consistent with what's taking place at the economic level, he said — a profound shrinkage of the middle class and a growing population of working poor and disadvantaged people. Research has suggested that inequality can lead to higher rates of violent crime.
"What we're seeing is largely growing economic and social inequality," he said.
"From a criminological point of view, it's not surprising, therefore, to see spikes in street violence, which causes concerns among large segments of the general public."
Wortley has been investigating issues like this for a long time, including as part of an Ontario inquiry into the roots of youth violence. What most progressive police leaders will admit, Wortley said, is that Canada isn't going to arrest itself out of its problems.
Police can be given more powers, and more boots can be put on the ground, which will lead to arrests and press conferences, and criminals will be weeded out. But if the garden from which crime emerges isn't tended to, a new crop of criminals will emerge, Wortley said.
"When you look at the platforms of most major parties, a lot of the focus is on front-line police officers. And that is part of the solution. But if you really want to make a long-term difference, you've got to focus on those community investments, community development investments," he said.
"But that may be the nature of modern politics. Many of the programs that are going to reduce crime dramatically or keep crime low take years, if not decades, to manifest results."
Competing narratives
When it comes to the United Conservative Party and NDP, the leading parties in the Alberta election, Wortley said he has noticed a commonality between the two approaches: both expressed a desire to increase policing among their other policy objectives.
"I think it's the political reality that unless you're going to support policing these days, your chances of being elected drop dramatically," he said.
"You're going to be viewed as soft on crime. And that is not something that is politically expedient right now."
To Wortley, the NDP platform appears to envision policing as being intertwined with other major social institutions such as education, housing and health care.
"Whereas the UCP platform seems more focused on a strict, law-and-order agenda — giving the police the resources they need to identify criminals and lock them up," he said. "There is definitely an appetite [among the public] for those types of policies."
Kelly Sundberg, a professor in criminology at Mount Royal University in Calgary, said there's a need for whichever party ends up winning to work with universities, community groups, the business community and others to understand the problems and not propagate fear, given broader crime trends.
"We're talking about a very specific social concern. This is social disorder and random violence in public spaces. It's very specific," he said.
"We actually know what the problem is. But it's a multifaceted response. There has to be co-ordination and collaboration between the non-profit organizations that do deal with this. There has to be much more well thought-out grant programs for groups. We need to see a plan."
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With files from Robson Fletcher