Crime Trends and Patterns

According to facts and my opinion, I believe that crime trends are decreasing in Canada and BC. Based on the Statistics Canada website, the police-reported index shows that crime rates and crime severity have both been decreasing over the past decade. I think that crime rates are decreasing because the economy is increasing. This increase in economy causes people to have jobs and/or increases the population of cities and rural areas. The increase in population would give criminals less opportunities to actually commit the crimes that they otherwise would. "The highest police-reported crime severity indexes in 2008 were all found in western CMAs. Crime severity was highest in Regina, followed by Abbotsford–Mission, Saskatoon, Kelowna, Winnipeg, Edmonton and Vancouver." - Statistics Canada. Violent crimes, being things like murder, sexual assault, robbery and things along those lines, have held fairly steady. It is the crimes that are easily accessible, like impaired driving or cannabis posession that have been increasing. I think the reason these crimes are increasing is because people find that the penalty isn't very strict so they can deal with the punishment that they are going to be given.