Criminologist thinks Windsor bucking national crime rate trends could be due to aging population

Windsor police saw a decrease in the Crime Severity Index (CSI) last week as it bucks the national trend, however, perceptions of crime in the community still exist as do whether or not the lower numbers are a result of policing.

The revelations were made in an annual report on police-reported crime statistics for 2022 by Statistics Canada.

CSI measures the number of crimes reported by police per 100,000 people combined with a weighted scale of how severe the crimes were.

The report looked at the change in levels from 2021 to 2022. It said thatCanada saw a four per cent increase ofthe CSI nationwide, however, Windsor saw an 11 per cent decrease.

Windsor police tweeted combined results for Windsor and Amherstburg showing a 14.5 per cent decrease for the entire region, as well as 9.6 per cent decrease in the violent cime category.

John Deukmedjian, a criminologist and department head of sociology and criminology at the University of Windsor,said when crime rates started dipping nationally in 2015, one reason that was more widely accepted was that it was due to an aging population.

He believes that's what could be behind the lower numbers in Windsor.

"We seem to have an older population in Windsor compared to other city centres and as we do know, replicated by many studies that as people age and get older, they are less inclined to commit crime generally and more specifically, violent crime," said Deukmedjian.

"That's probably the more strongly correlatedreason."

He said that police do not have much impact on highsevere violent crime.

"You could add 200 officers and it wouldn't have an impact," he added.

'Ripple effect'

The perception of criminality continues to be prevalent in conversations about downtown Windsor, whether or not the statistics bear that out.

Bob Cameron, co-director of the Downtown Windsor Community Collaborative, said he tried to reconcilethe numbers with what he and other downtown residents experience.

"Things are decreasing but some things are also increasing," he said.

"We notice an increase in things, probably like petty theft."

Cameron said good stuff is happening in the downtown core buthe believes the perception of the area of being unsafe has been exasperated by things like social media.

"Where we take a story and run with it where a few years ago, a few people would discuss something that would happen in the neighbourhood or on the news, now multiple number of people are talking about it," he said.

"It's magnifying, you're getting a ripple effect that goes through and so we sense that increased awareness of what's happening, we think is more than what was happening in the past."

Deukmedjiansaid that a larger homeless population in a certain area can lead to a misconstrued perception of criminality.

"People tend to see homeless people in a negative light and if they see that then they think crime is going up," he said.

"There is a strong relation in how people perceive disorder, which is very minor crime or non-crime,and how they perceive major crimes."