Distribution of crime in 2004

An analysis of the spatial distribution of crime over time¹ suggests that population data must be available in order to take demographic fluctuations into account in determining crime rates. Census data available at the CT geographic level for the Island of Montréal are from 2001. Accordingly, the analysis presented in this report uses single kernel density distributions to determine whether the relative frequency of crime distribution on the Island of Montréal changed between 2001 and 2004.

Overall between 2001 and 2004, the Montréal police department reported a slight decrease in violent crime, the rate going from 1,168 per 100,000 population to 1,066 in 2004. A comparable decrease was also noted for property offences (4,923 in 2001 to 4,456 in 2004). Map 4 and Map 5 show relative frequency distributions of violent incidents in 2001 and 2004. These distributions indicate that, overall, the relative frequency of crime in a CT compared to the Island as a whole for the same year exhibited a very similar pattern for the years 2001 and 2004.

Map 6 and Map 7 illustrate the relative distributions of property offences in 2001 and 2004. The spatial distribution of the relative frequency of property crime incidents remained remarkably stable between 2001 and 2004.

Note

1. Change over time and the spatial analysis of crime were examined in depth in the Regina project. See Wallace, Wisener and Collins (2006, forthcoming).