Neighbourhood Characteristics and the Distribution of Crime in Regina

By Marnie Wallace, Michael Wisener and Krista Collins, Statistics Canada

This research paper explores the spatial distribution of crime and various social, economic and physical neighbourhood characteristics in the City of Regina. Analysis is based on police-reported crime data from the 1999, 2001, and 2003 Incident-based Uniform Crime Reporting Survey (UCR2), the 2001 Census of Population, 1999 and 2003 Small Area and Administrative data from tax filers, and City of Regina zoning and land-use data.

In general, results support previous research suggesting that crime is not randomly distributed within cities, but is associated with the distribution of other factors related to the population and land-uses of the city. When all other factors are taken into account, results indicate that higher levels of crime occur in neighbourhoods with lower levels of income and education, and higher proportions of young males. Housing related issues also have an impact on levels of neighbourhood crime. Neighbourhoods with higher proportions of renters, as opposed to home-owners, tend to have higher rates of violent crime while property crime rates tend to be higher in neighbourhoods with greater proportions of older housing.

Exploratory analysis supports previous research indicating that neighbourhoods with high violent crime rates tend to experience drops in population over time. Building on earlier results that income levels in a neighbourhood act as a predictor of crime, this study further showed that high income neighbourhoods had significantly lower property crime rates in both 1999 and 2003 compared to lower income neighbourhoods. There was, however, no significant difference between high and lower income neighbourhoods in terms of 1999 violent crime rates.

You need to use the free Adobe Reader to view PDF documents. To view (open) these files, simply click on the link. To download (save) them, right-click on the link. Note that if you are using Internet Explorer or AOL, PDF documents sometimes do not open properly. See Troubleshooting PDFs. PDF documents may not be accessible by some devices. For more information, visit the Adobe website or contact us for assistance.