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EDITORIAL: Murder statistics sometimes misleading

The annual murder rate can be a misleading statistic. Last year Thunder Bay led the nation, with 9.42 murders for every 100,000 people living here. That was 2.5 times the rate in Edmonton, the next highest on the Statistics Canada list.
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(tbnewswatch.com file photograph)

The annual murder rate can be a misleading statistic.

Last year Thunder Bay led the nation, with 9.42 murders for every 100,000 people living here. That was 2.5 times the rate in Edmonton, the next highest on the Statistics Canada list.

To outsiders, it might appear that Thunder?Bay is a dangerous place to live.

And with violent crimes on the rise, accordig to the same report, they might be right.

But the report is just a snapshot in time, an indication of, in our case, a really bad year.

Eleven murders set a dubious record in 2014, the most homicides in one year since police started keeping track.

This year, seven full months into 2015, we’ve had just one.

So which is the real picture?

Most of the murders that took place last year can be pinpointed to socio-economic causes. Poverty, combined with alcohol and drug addiction, were a factor in nearly every killing that took place.

There’s little police can do to stop them from happening. They’re crimes of opportunity.

The city, with help from the provincial and federal governments, needs to figure out a way to reverse the conditions that lead people to violence, which, of course, is easier said than done.

 





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