OPINION: Canada’s crime problem worse than people realize

Published Jun 21, 2026  •  Last updated 25 minutes ago  •  4 minute read

Gary Mauser and John Lott. Photo by Supplied Photos

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Canada faces a serious crime problem, but many Canadians believe crime is relatively low compared with the United States. That perception largely stems from a misunderstanding of how crime is measured

Focusing on homicide rates alone therefore provides a misleading picture of public safety. Canadians are far more likely to experience assault, robbery or other violent crimes than homicide, yet public debate and media coverage often ignore these broader measures.

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In the United States, the comparable figure was 41% in 2019 and 48.1% in 2024. Even if the two countries experienced identical levels of violent crime, the higher U.S. reporting rate would make American police statistics appear much worse.

Comparisons based on stats can be misleading

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This means that comparisons based solely on police statistics can be highly misleading, both across countries and over time. Differences in reporting behaviour can create the illusion that one country is safer than another when the opposite may be true.

Victimization surveys provide a different picture. While direct comparisons are complicated because the Canadian GSS and U.S. NCVS define some crimes differently, those differences generally favour Canada and make the United States appear relatively more violent.

For example, the Canadian survey uses a broader definition of sexual assault, while the U.S. survey includes threats and attempted assaults that do not involve physical contact. Because assaults account for most violent crime, the NCVS definition tends to inflate U.S. violent-crime totals relative to Canada’s.

Even with this bias against the United States, the results are striking. In 2019, Canada’s overall violent-crime victimization rate was 295% higher than the U.S. rate. Even if sexual assaults are excluded to reduce differences in definitions, Canada’s violent-crime rate remained 175% higher.

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Look beyond murders, police-reported crime

Robbery provides an especially useful comparison because the surveys measure it in a similar way. The Canadian robbery rate was 268% higher than the American rate. Canadians are roughly 366 times more likely to be robbed than to become homicide victims, underscoring how misleading it is to focus public discussion almost exclusively on murder rates.

Property crime shows a similar pattern. Canada’s burglary rate was 259% higher than the U.S. rate. Only in the category of other household theft did Canada perform somewhat better, with a rate about 19% lower than the United States.

As with more recent surveys, the difference was driven primarily by higher rates of assault, threats, and robbery.

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Unfortunately, the ICVS has been discontinued, leaving policymakers and the public with fewer opportunities for direct international comparisons. But the available evidence points in the same direction: homicide rates alone provide only a small part of violent crime, and police statistics tell only part of the story.

If Canadians want an accurate understanding of public safety, they must look beyond murders and beyond police-reported crime. Victimization surveys, despite their limitations, offer a much more complete picture. And that picture suggests Canada’s crime problem is far more serious than many people realize.

Reducing crime isn’t rocket science.

To cut crime, we must make criminal activity riskier by increasing arrest and conviction rates, imposing longer prison sentences, and allowing victims to defend themselves.

Lott is president of the Crime Prevention Research Center and served as the senior advisor for research and statistics in the Office of Justice Programs and the Office of Legal Policy in the U.S. Department of Justice during 2020-21. 

Mauser is professor emeritus at Simon Fraser University 

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