Crime in Toronto

Crime in Toronto has been relatively average as in comparison to other major cities as of late. In 2017, a ranking of 60 cities by The Economist ranked Toronto as the fourth safest major city in the world, behind London, Tokyo and Seoul, and the safest major city in North America, although Toronto has had an uptick in gun crime in both 2018 and 2019.[1][2] A CEOWORLD magazine ranked Toronto as the 95th safest cities in the world for 2018, running behind several other major cities like Tokyo, Osaka, Singapore, Hong Kong, London and Taipei but ahead of any other city in North America, other than New York City.[3]

Even though Toronto is the fourth largest city in North America, it has a relatively low homicide rate that fluctuated between 2.1 to 3.1[4][5] per 100,000 people over the 2010s decade, which is lower than other major cities such as Atlanta (19.0), Chicago (18.5), Boston (9.0), San Francisco (8.6), New York City (5.1), and San Jose (4.6).[6][7] In 2007, Toronto's robbery rate also ranked low, with 207.1 robberies per 100,000 people, compared to Detroit (675.1), Chicago (588.6), Los Angeles (348.5), Vancouver (266.2), New York City (265.9), Montreal (235.3), San Diego (158.8), and Portland (150.5).[8][9][10][11][12][13]

While homicide rates in Toronto were relatively low for several years, they started to increase in 2016 until Toronto experienced the highest homicide rate among major Canadian cities in 2018,[14] and for a single year even matched the homicide rate of New York City.[4] Homicide rates declined again in 2019. When compared across major metropolitan areas, the Greater Toronto Area ranked 9th in Canada with a homicide rate of 2.26 per 100,000.[15]

Organized crime

Large criminal organizations have been operating in the Toronto region since at least the mid-19th century, beginning with the homegrown, yet short-lived Markham Gang. Since that time, large-scale organized crime in Toronto has mostly been the domain of international or foreign-based crime syndicates.

By the early 1900s, the infamous Black Hand had followed Italian immigrants to Toronto as it had in most major North American cities at the time. Italian organized crime remains prevalent, with the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta such as the Siderno Group, as well as the Sicilian Mafia.[16] During prohibition, Toronto became a major center for bootlegging operations into the United States, which also saw an increased presence of Italian-American organized crime — specifically the Buffalo crime family.

Today, the multicultural face of Toronto is well reflected in the city's underworld, which includes everything from Jamaican posses to Eastern European bratvas and to American biker gangs. The genesis of many foreign criminal organizations in Toronto has often been linked to the drug trade, as with the large influx of heroin and various Asian triads during the 1970s,[17] or cocaine and South American cartels in the 1980s.[18] These criminal groups, however, occasionally have a political bent as well, as with the Tamil organized crime groups such as the VVT and rival AK Kannan gangs, which warred with each other in the city's streets during the 1990s and early 2000s over the brown heroin trade.[19] In recent decades, Toronto has also seen an infiltration of major American street gangs such as the Bloods, Crips, and Mara Salvatrucha.

There has also been recent evidence of significant cooperation between major organized crime groups including in gambling. In 2013 the Platinum Sportsbook a sports betting ring, thought have brought in over $100 million in revenue, was a joint venture between Hells Angels, Italian Mafia and Asian organized crime figures.[20]

Critics have argued that organized crime has been allowed to flourish in Canadian cities such as Toronto due to the difficulty and cost of prosecuting organized crime cases compared with individual cases, and the flexible minimum sentencing and the double time served stipulations that the judicial system utilizes to unburden the penal system. Today, Toronto has become a center for a wide array of organized and transnational criminal activities, including the counterfeiting of currency, bank cards, and digital entertainment products, together with telemarketing fraud and the production of marijuana and synthetic drugs.[18] Toronto also has a comparable rate of car theft to various U.S. cities, although this is lower than in some other Canadian cities. Much of this has been attributed to organized crime, with stolen vehicles ending up being shipped overseas for sale.

Youth gangs

Early history

In his 1945 book Street Gangs in Toronto: A Study of the Forgotten Boy,[21] Kenneth H. Rogers identified the following gangs active at that time in the following areas of the city:

  • Moss Park - Riverdale: Brown Gang, Grey Gang, Porter Gang
  • Withrow Park: Beavers, Britch Gang, Graphic Gang (Rogers refers to at least 4 other unnamed gangs in this area)
  • North Toronto: Evans Gang, King Gang, Wunkies
  • Rosedale: Arnot Gang, Basket Gang, Black Gang, Green Gang, Grey Gang (Rogers refers to 2 other unnamed gangs in this area)
  • Bathurst & Queen: Aces Gang, Aggies, Bridge Gang, Cardinal Group, George Gang, Harris Gang, Mix Gang, Park Gang, Rustler Gang, Trapper Gang

Most of these gangs were simply loose-knit groups of juvenile delinquents involved mainly in low-level, petty crimes such as gambling, shop-lifting, and pick-pocketing (Rogers was actually robbed by members of the King Gang while attempting to interview them). The composition of the gangs were mainly poor Caucasian youth of British descent, although some were more ethnically diverse such as the George Gang (Jewish), the Mix Gang (Black), and the Aggies (Polish & Ukrainian).

Current prevalence of youth gangs

Rates of youth gang activity in Toronto can be challenging to measure due to conflicting definitions of gangs, the smaller size of youth gangs, and their looser organization.[22] Some research found 11% of Toronto high school students and 27% of Toronto homeless youth identified as being gang members at some point in their lives.[23] Other research found under 6% of high school students and 16% of street youth identify as current gang members — but that only 4% of students and 15% of street youth were involved in gangs of a criminal (rather than social) nature.[24]

Criminal activity

One study has reported that approximately 2,400 high school students in Toronto claim to have carried a gun at least once between 2004 and 2005.[23] Research has found that most youth gang-related crime consists of property offenses,[25] drugs sales, drug use, and physical conflicts with other gangs. Social activities are more widely reported amongst self-identified youth gang members than criminal activities.[24] Murder and other more grievous types of crime are uncommon.[25]

Demographics of youth gang members

Although most youth gang members are male, mixed-gender and female youth gangs also exist.[25] Youth from lower-income families are more likely to self-identify as gang members,[24] but membership cuts across lower, middle and upper income categories.[25] One study found that although Black, South Asian and Hispanic youth in Toronto are more likely to report gang activity than youth of other ethnicities, 27% of criminal youth gang members self-identify as white (followed by 23% Black, 3% Aboriginal, 18% South Asian, 17% Asian, 5% Middle Eastern and 7% Hispanic). A correlation has not been found between youth gang membership and immigration status.[24] Gang-involved youth commonly report a history of abuse and/or neglect, poverty, dysfunctional families, isolation, school failure, and other psychosocial issues.[25]

Community and police response

Efforts to reduce youth gang crime have included police raids,[26] government & social programs,[22] and camera surveillance of public housing projects.[22]

Late 1980s and early 1990s
 
Toronto
Total
Homicides[27]		Gun
Deaths		Total Shootings
YearOccurrencesVictims
1990[28]55
1991[29]89
1992[29]65
1993[30]59
1994[30]65
1995[30]58
1996[30]58
1997[30]61
1998[30]56
1999[30]47B
2000[30]60
2001[30]59
2002[30]62
2003[30]6731326 [31]
2004[30]6427 [28]
2005[32]80A52359359
2006[32]7029217323
2007[33]8643205242
2008[33]7036238336
2009[33]6237256338
2010[33]6532260330
2011[34]5127–28A227281
2012[34]5733213289
2013[34]5722202255
2014[34]5827177[35]242
2015[36] 5927288[35]429
2016[37]75[38][39]41407[35]581
2017[40]65/66 [41][42]A39395[35]594
2018[43] 96C[44] 51 424 604
2019 78[45] 44[46] 490[46]

A Inconsistency in source data. B 1999: Lowest total since 1986. C 2018: Highest total to date.

In the late 1980s, gangs in Toronto were becoming increasingly violent. This coincided with the arrival of crack cocaine in the city, which caused more gun violence to occur in low-income neighborhoods.[47] In 1988, Toronto Police were under scrutiny for a series of shootings of unarmed black men, dating back to the late 1970s.[48][49][50] In 1991, Toronto experienced its most violent year with 89 murders (that murder tally was surpassed in 2018), 16 of which were linked to drug wars involving rival gangs.[47][51]

On May 4, 1992, there were riots on Yonge Street, which followed peaceful protesting of a fatal shooting of an unarmed black man by Toronto police, the eighth such shooting in the last four years, and fourth fatal one.[52] Later that year, local activist Dudley Laws claimed that police bias against Blacks was worse in Toronto than in Los Angeles.[48]

Late 1990s

Toronto recorded 47 homicides in 1999, which, as of 2020, remains the city's lowest homicide total since 1986. That year, there were a total of 60 homicides across Toronto's census metropolitan area, with a murder rate of 1.28 per 100,000 people.[53][54][55][56]

2005–2014: "Year of the Gun", shootings and the falling murder rate

In 2005, Toronto media coined the term "Year of the Gun" because the number of gun-related homicides reached a record 52 out of 80 murders in total;[57] almost double the 27 gun deaths recorded the previous year.[58] On December 26, 2005, 15-year-old Jane Creba was shot and killed in the Boxing Day shooting while shopping on Yonge Street in downtown Toronto. After this incident, many people called for the federal government to ban handguns in Canada; this also became an issue in the 2006 federal election, but the number of homicides dropped to 70 in 2006. However, 2007 saw another, smaller wave of gun violence starting in May with the shooting death of 15-year-old Jordan Manners at his school, C. W. Jefferys Collegiate Institute. A couple months later, on July 22, 2007, 11-year-old Ephraim Brown was killed after being shot in the neck by a stray bullet, during a gang shooting in the city's north end at Jane Street and Sheppard Avenue. These events raised calls for a ban on handguns once again. Of the 86 murders in 2007, half were via firearm; thus, Toronto had a murder rate of about 3.3 per 100,000, slightly less than the peak rate of 3.9 in 1991.[51] There was a drop in murders again in 2008 with 70 (a total of 105 murders in the Greater Toronto Area – including a record high 27 occurring in neighboring Peel Region, but statistically this was an anomalous year there). The falling murder totals continued in 2009 with 65, followed by 63 in 2010, then the lowest total in recent times with only 51 (75 total in the GTA) in 2011, the lowest homicide total since 1986 at a rate of 2.0 per 100,000, close to the national average, representing a further dramatic decline in the city's murder rate for the fourth consecutive year. The number of homicides stabilized to the mid-50s for the next 4 years. Overall, shooting incidents also declined, from 335 occurrences in 2010 to 255 reported in 2013, and reaching a decade-low 196 for 2014.[34]

2015–present

After a substantial decrease in homicides after the 2005 "year of the gun" and a stable period 2009-2015, the murder rate in Toronto started to increase again drastically in 2016.[59] The homicide rate jumped to 75 homicides in 2016 and spiked in 2018 with 96 homicides in 2018, which is partially due to the Toronto van attack, which murdered 10 people on April 23. This increased Toronto's homicide rate to 3.5 per 100,000 people in 2018, the highest among major Canadian cities and higher than New York City for the same year.[14][60] The homicide total dropped again in 2019 to 78 (a rate of 2.7 per 100,000 people) below the rate of most US cities, but still higher than the Canadian average of 1.8.[61]

In conjunction with that increase in murders, overall shooting incidents also increased from a low of 177 in 2014 to an all-time high of 490 in 2019, even outpacing gun incidents that occurred in 2018.[46] At the same time, gun deaths increased from a low of 22 in 2013 to a high of 51 in 2018 and dropped slightly to 44 in 2019.[46]

See also

References
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