The violent crime rate decline: Towards an explanation.

Abstract

Academics and policy makers have taken note of what appears to be a decline in violent crime in the early 1990's in North America. In Canada, by 1999, the violent crime rate had decreased for the seventh consecutive year. Research has failed, to date, to fully account for this decline. In fact, there are many competing explanations found in the literature. With the exception of research by Kennedy & Veitch, (1997) Carrington, (2001) and Ouimet (2002), most of the research examining the decreasing levels of violent crime has been undertaken using American data. The purpose of this study is to answer the following research question: Which proposed explanations for the decline in rates of violent crime decline are most plausible? This paper examines four possible explanations for the recent decline in the violent crime including changes in the unemployment rate, demographic patterns, police staffing levels and reporting rates. This thesis concludes that the best explanations for the violent crime rate decline between 1993 and 1999 are the changes in the unemployment rate and the changes in demographic patterns as well as changes in the police workforce. Reporting rates have remained stable and thus cannot account for the violent crime rate decline. However, even these explanations fail to account for variation in crime rates over a larger period. Clearly, more sophisticated research is needed.