When looking at crime, we tend to be somewhat insular. We compare city to city and province to province and now to the past, but we rarely go beyond our borders.
There are some interesting comparisons to be made, however.
One thing that jumped out at me was 56 per cent of Canadians believe crime has been increasing over the past three years.
That is despite the fact crime, both the rate and severity, has been decreasing since the early 1990s.
Why the disconnect? One Toronto psychologist says it is a cognitive bias based on the fact that crime stories are usually a high priority for news editors and producers. It also occurs to me that we simply don’t remember how we used to feel about crime as time passes.
In any event, Canada that percentage puts Canada in 70th place with respect to how many people think crime is increasing.
And interestingly, 59 per cent of us still feel safe walking alone at night even though crime is allegedly increasing.
The reality is that although crime is decreasing, we still rank 8th in overall number of crimes.
That ranking would drop dramatically if we were just to legalize marijuana because we rank second in marijuana use.
One thing I did not know, surprisingly, is that in Canada the age of criminal responsibility is 12. That puts us smack dab in the middle both in terms of the age and ranking.
Countries range from 18 years old (Peru, Columbia, Brazil, Argentina) and 6 (the United States, Mexico).
It is fascinating what you can find on a slow week in the newsroom.
