Did crime really rise dramatically in Halton in the first six months of 2022?
A report presented to this week’s meeting of the Halton Police Services Board suggested that 1,769 more criminal offences were reported in the first six months of this year than in the same period last year.
Specifically, 7,081 cases were reported in the first half of 2022 compared with 5,312 last year. That’s a 33% increase. Violent crime offences increased by 38.7% and property crime was up 40.2%.
The increases may, for the most part, be an illusion resulting from COVID. “The data from the first six months of 2022 suggest a return to pre-pandemic levels,” according to the staff report.
Police officials explained that 2021 was a COVID year. They suggested that during COVID, human behaviour changed. Crime was way down. It would therefore be incorrect to compare 2022 (mainly a non-COVID year) with 2021 (mainly a COVID year). They suggested that when the figures for the first six months of 2022 are compared to the pre-COVID years of 2018 and 2019, the result is more accurate and less concerning.
“We’re still the safest municipality in Canada. The increase in violent crime is really returning to the level of previous years, so it’s not quite the doom and gloom story if you only look at the numbers,” said Chief Stephen Tanner.
Board members remained concerned, however, about some numbers that suggested increases in crime beyond what might be explained by COVID. They requested another report digging deeper into the numbers, particularly those related to human trafficking, hate crimes, and cyber crime.
There was a brief discussion related to the human trafficking numbers. It caused Chief Tanner to put the issue in perspective for board members. “Human trafficking is huge. It going on in almost every hotel in Halton every day.”
The continuing problem of car thefts also got the attention of board members with 84 thefts reported per 100,000 residents in the first six months of this year.
“There has been a huge increase in auto thefts…a lot of that has to do with Range Rover, Land Rover types of vehicles, sometimes being taken from their owners at gunpoint. …It’s very much an organized crime business. A lot of those vehicles will be loaded into cargo containers in Montreal within 24 hours and shipped over seas,” said Tanner, who added that Lexus vehicles are also big targets for thieves.
