Canada’s violent crime rate 14.0% higher than U.S. in 2022, and rising; property crime rate 27.5% higher

Comparing Recent Crime Trends in Canada and the United States: An Introduction

• This is a pre-release of an upcoming study examining crime rates between Canada and the United States.
• This first chapter focuses on national comparisons, and finds that from 2014 (a year when crimes rates reached their lowest) to 2022 (the most recent comparable year of data), rates of both violent crime and property crime (adjusted for population) have been increasing in Canada and now surpass comparable crime rates in the United States.
• From 2014 to 2022, the violent crime rate in Canada increased by 43.8 per cent to 434.1 violent crimes per 100,000 people.
• The violent crime rate in the U.S. increased 5.3 per cent over the same period to 380.7 violent crimes per 100,000 people.
• Likewise, the rate of population-adjusted property crimes (e.g., burglary, theft, motor vehicle theft) is also now higher in Canada than in the U.S., with 2491.0 crimes occurring per 100,000 people in Canada in 2022—a 7.0 per cent increase from 2014.
• By contrast, the property crime rate in the U.S. declined by 24.1 per cent over the same period to 1954.4 crimes per 100,000 people.
• Homicides are also on the rise in Canada with the number of murders increasing from 1.5 per 100,000 in 2014 to 2.3 in 2022—a 53.4 per cent increase.
• The homicide rate in the U.S. remains markedly higher than in Canada at 5.8 per 100,000 people in 2022 and increased 49.4 per cent from 2014 to 2022.