Violent crime has continued its multi-year steady increase in Greater Sudbury, reaching a record-breaking 3,222 offences in 2023.
This represents an increase in violent crime offenses of 11.3 per cent (327 cases) compared to 2022, and the eighth consecutive year the number of violent offences has increased.
Further, it’s the greatest annual total of violent crime incidents in the City of Greater Sudbury’s history, which dates back to its 2001 amalgamation.
The city’s 23-year average is 1,975 violent offences per year. The pandemic era (2020-23) recorded an average of 2,814 violent offences per year, which 2023 exceeded by 12.6 per cent.
The recent spike shouldn’t come as too great of a surprise, with last year also recording Greater Sudbury’s highest-ever violent crime severity index of 137.9, which ranked the city third among 36 metropolitan areas listed by Statistics Canada (outranked only by Thunder Bay and Winnipeg).
The city’s latest crime statistics were revealed during Wednesday’s police board meeting, which member Gerry Lougheed cited as “a red flag, because that’s significant to the community’s well-being and safety.”
Acting Chief Sara Cunningham responded by clarifying that offenders are typically known to each other and that intimate partner violence has notably been on the rise.
GSPS’s year-end crime statistics report noted that 72 per cent of last year’s aggravated assault cases involve people known to each other.
Cunningham also said it’s unclear to what degree crime has increased, since it’s always possible more people are reporting crime. On this front, she clarified that a lot of crime has historically gone unreported.
“We’re not seeing any types of anomalies here in Greater Sudbury that aren't being felt in other jurisdictions and cities throughout the province, if not the country,” Greater Sudbury Police Service Deputy Chief Natalie Hiltz told Sudbury.com following Wednesday’s meeting.
“We continue to be high and we have not yet returned to our pre-pandemic rates of violence.”
Statistics Canada has recorded a violent crime severity index on the rise across Canada in recent years. It has been on a fairly steady increase since reaching a low in 2014.
Hiltz also cited intimate partner violence as a growing concern.
Last year, there was a 10-per-cent increase in intimate partner violence-related incidents, with 3,544 incidents reported in 2023 compared to 3,231 in 2022.
In recent months, the City of Greater Sudbury and police board have both declared gender-based violence an epidemic. Police reportedly respond to every call related to intimate-partner violence without exception, and said they have met relevant coroner’s inquest recommendations coming out of a 2015 triple homicide in Renfrew County.
Hiltz described GSPS as a learning organization which would be “taking our queue on some of those findings and saying, what is the work we can do and where are those gaps?”
The following are some other notable violent crime offence statistics from 2023:
- Assaults were up by 18.8 per cent (1,487 incidents in 2022 to 1,766 in 2023)
- Criminal harassment decreased by 4.8 per cent (437 incidents to 416)
- Sexual assaults increased by 3.3 per cent (244 incidents to 252)
- Other sexual offences decreased by 4.8 per cent (95 incidents to 86)
Although violent crime is notably up in Greater Sudbury, property crime offences were down last year, dropping by 2.3 per cent. Last year’s 4,775-incident total was also 20.6-per-cent below the city’s 23-year annual average of 5,761 and is the lowest annual total on record since 2016, when 4,469 incidents were recorded.
“We’ve done a lot of work with businesses and residential areas with high levels of break and enters, which is a big area of property-related crime and mischief,” Hiltz said, crediting advancements in security equipment and the adoption of crime prevention through environmental design (keeping sightlines open) with helping reduce instances of property crime.
The following are some notable property crime offence statistics from 2023:
- Break and enters were down by 10.3 per cent (672 incidents in 2022 to 603 in 2023), including a 3.7-per-cent drop at residential properties and a 29.8-per-cent drop among businesses
- Frauds were down by 8.4 per cent, which GSPS credited primarily to a decrease in CERB-related frauds and identity fraud
- Mischief was down 8.1 per cent, which GSPS credited to greater foot traffic coming out of the pandemic providing less opportunity to commit offences
- Motor vehicle thefts decreased by 4.4 per cent (12 offences), “possibly attributed to ongoing messaging regarding crime prevention measures, such as locking vehicle doors and not leaving keys in the vehicle.”
Overall crime increased by 2.5 per cent in 2023 (9,642 offences in 2022 to 9,887 in 2023), while calls for service increased by 8.7 per cent (58,117 calls in 2022 and 63,626 calls in 2023, of which approximately 84 per cent were not criminal in nature).
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.
