The Crime Severity Index. Essay Example

According to The New York Times, the crime rate, in general, has been declining since 2000 in Canada, with the 2018 crime rate around 30 percent lower than peak levels in 2003, where violent crimes and property crimes have declined with 39 percent (Austen, 2019). The Crime Severity Index (CSI) has tracked and weighted the crimes by their seriousness and concluded that the crimes’ severity has also declined. According to Statista Research Department (2020), homicide incidents surfacing as a discrepancy with a peak in the 20th century. According to Affleck and Barrison (2018), the crime rate in Canada has increased for the fourth year in a row. In 2018, the general crime rate was found to have augmented by 2 percent compared to 2017; however, it is still low compared to that of 10 years ago. According to the BBC World News (2019), The Canadian hate crimes have declined. In 2018, the police reported 1,768 hate crimes, which was lower than the 2,073 hate crimes, which were recounted in 2017 as per the Statistics Canada’s new data. The decline in crimes against Muslims is the one behind the decrease in hate crimes. The Economist (2019) argues that more than a third of the organizations in Canada are white-collar victims compared to 37% globally as per the PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP survey. However, Canada’s white-collar crime rate is below the global average; there is still a continuation of economic crime growth. According to The Guardian, 140 out of 651 murders incidences in 2018 were Indigenous individuals (Eschner, 2019). The indigenous citizens are melodramatically overrepresented among the Canadian murder victims. However, the number of male victims is decreasing. In 2018, there were six more female victims of homicide incidences than in 2017, which marked the second consecutive annual increase.

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Part 2: Statistics

Homicide cases have been reported to decline since 2000 in Canada, citing that there is a crime rate reduction of approximately 30% from the peak states back in 2003. According to United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) statistics from the period 2008 to 2018, there has been a staggering rate of homicide cases with high levels of the same standards of 1.8 per 100,000 people in 2008; 2009, 2017 and 2018. Between 2008 to 2018, there has been a reduction in homicide cases involving all crimes sorts, with a low occurrence of 1.4 per 100,000 people recorded in 2013. Statistically, homicide cases in Canada have been rising gradually from 2013, where the rate increased 2015 to1.7 per 100,000 people from 1.5 per 100,000 people in 2014. For instance, in 2018, several incidences resulted in the loss of many lives as well as injuries. An example of the incidents was an attack on pedestrians that were deliberately struck by a van, which led to 10 homicides and 13 victims of attempted murders. The rates stabilized through 2016 and then increased to 1.8 per 100,000 people in 2017 and 2018 according to the compiled data by UNODC.

The crime statistics in my assigned country, Canada, are reliable. The statistics compiled by UNODC perfectly ally with the numbers reported by the Government of Canada and the police department. For instance, the highest number of reported 660 cases in 2017 was the highest since 2009, a figure which was cited at 1.8 victims per 100,000 people. However, the homicide cases account for minor proportions of the criminal code offenses conducted in Canada (Allen, 2018). A place like Toronto has been impacted profoundly by illegal activities. For example, a deadly shooting took place on Danforth Avenue in the city’s Greektown, which resulted in the killing of two people and 13 victims of attempted homicide. In another area like Saskatchewan, a deadly motor vehicle accident that involved a junior ice hockey team, Humboldt Broncos, took place leading to 16 deaths and 13 victims with serious injuries. Typically, homicide has been inconsistent for the selected years between 2008 and 2018. During this period, there was a gradual decline from 1.8 per 100,000 people to 1.4 per 100,000 people in 2013. Besides, there was a consequent gradual increase to 1.8 per 100,000 in 2018. From my research, the trend in homicide cases is due to the legalization of recreational marijuana in Canada. Additionally, some territories such as Yukon, Nunavut, and the three Northern Territories have been violent. Therefore, they have been cited for having the highest number of homicide cases than the national average.

As evident from the above chart, my assigned country, Canada, has relatively higher crime rates than Germany and reasonably lower crime rates than the United States. To begin with, the United States has the highest crime rates according to the above chart for the selected period between 2008 and 2018. However, despite the high crime rates in the United States, there is a notable decline, although it has been inconsistent with the high standard of 5.8 per 100,000 people recorded in 2010. Germany has the lowest crime rates from the above chart, with an average crime rate of 0.9 per 100,000 people. Canada and Germany seem to have maintained crime rates because there is a small margin of 0.4 between the highest and lowest homicides compared to the United States, which has a margin of 1.4. The reason why Canada has less crime compared to the United States is that it has other peaceful ways to solve problems other than guns and violence as the case in the United States. The United States applies the stand-your-ground law, which permits the citizens to use deadly force on intruders. This law has facilitated many citizens to own guns, thus increasing the homicide incidents in the name on the doctrine law. On the other hand, Canada has relatively higher crime cases than Germany, basically due to instability in the Northern Territories in Canada. Germany, however, has been careful in handling cases of sexual assaults, violence, and drug abuse.

Part 3

According to Amnesty International (2020), Canada is cited as a multi-democracy state that a global reputation of protecting human rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The government of Canada has been steadfast in advocating for a unified society that has elite regard to the rights of people with disabilities, immigrants, lesbians, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people as well as other minorities. However, Canada has been unable to combat the substantial human rights challenges, which include confinement of immigrants detained in jails, abuse against indigenous people, and the prison law that contradicts the extended solitary confinement. This article argues that there are many cases of homicides towards the indigenous people, and the authorities deny the victims their human rights. Amnesty International explains that under Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) section 60, detention of immigrant children should be done as a last resort and, ultimately, the interests of the child taken into consideration.

According to Melissa (2017), the Human Rights Watch identified corporate accountability, religious freedom, violence against indigenous women, indigenous rights, and immigration detention as the significant human rights issues in Canada. Typically, there are no laws that allow the Canadian authorities to scrutinize and oversee the impacts of mining companies on human rights. The mining companies have been cited for violating human rights through torture, slavery, and forced labor. These companies offer under wages to the workers such that they cannot cater to their basic needs accordingly. This article argues that some of the mining firms in Canada are involved in child labor. They put the workers in a problematic position where they have to work for the company, whether they like it or not. Due to the low wages offered by these companies, the workers continue being deprived while the employers get richer. According to Bill 21, passed by the Canadian province of Quebec in June 2019, the categories of public employees were banned from wearing religious symbols in workplaces. For instance, the police officers, judges, and teachers, among other civil servants are not allowed to wear the badge of faith such as kippahs, turbans, and hijabs in workplaces. Additionally, children are required to be detained as a last resort in Canada’s Immigration Law, but children are reported to be held in Canada’s immigration detention centers.

According to Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (2019), the real overall picture of human rights in Canada is defined by a violation of the rights of indigenous rights through man-handling indigenous women in the nation. Canada is cited as one of the countries rich in water. However, many indigenous communities are still struggling with access to safe and clean drinking water, imposing health issues among the people. According to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal 2019, Canada’s federal government in September 2019 was reported to have willfully neglected and discriminated against indigenous children on reserves through failure to provide child and family funding. In January 2019, the United Nations Human Rights Committee discovered that Canada still discriminated first nation’s women and their descendants. Due to consequent cases of missing and murdered indigenous girls and women in Canada, the National Inquiry released its final reports on their research about the endemic levels of violence, and the cases amount to a typical race murder.

According to Human Rights Watch (2019), the rights of indigenous people in Canada have not been considered accordingly. Prime Minister Trudeau promised a “renewed, nation-to-nation relationship with Indigenous peoples,” but there is still some challenges that are hindering the system of fighting discrimination in the country. The government promised critical changes in 2018 on how the federal government would consider and recognize the rights of indigenous people. The government vowed to provide the indigenous people with their land title and develop their working conditions and create a new legal framework to advance self-governance and self-discrimination. Also, this article shows that violations of the rights of indigenous people in Canada have persisted through murder and missing cases of indigenous girls and women despite frequent promises on the formulation of new laws. Thus, it has, in turn, resulted in racism, racial inequality, and slavery in the United States, where the legal and illegal immigrants (children inclusive) are brutally abused, leading to state terrorism.