York Region ranks among safest places to live latest crime statistics show
Ranks below national rates in all major categories

YorkRegion.com
Nov. 23, 2017
Tim Kelly

York Region is a safe place to live, according to a Maclean's list of Canada's 229 most dangerous places to live in Canada.

The national magazine broke down the country's municipalities based on a crime severity index, which looks at a mix of violent crime, drug crime, theft and property crime as well as youth offences, and found York Region rated 201st most dangerous or 30th safest, depending on how you look at the list.

For instance, York Region with a population of 1,157,419 had eight homicides last year and a homicide rate of 0.69 per 100,000 people, well below the Canadian rate of 1.68 per 100,000.

When it comes to assaults, York is also below the national rate at 181.87 per 100,000 compared to 430.68 per 100,000 and sexual assaults rate at 30.15 per 100,000 versus 56.56 per 100,000 nationally.

Robbery numbers show York at 29.55 per 100,000 compared to the national rate of 60.09 per 100,000.

However York's fraud rate sits at 273.8 per 100,000 compared to 299.05 nationally.

For drug offences, York rates are well below national rates across the board.

For impaired driving, it's 92.53 per 100,000 in York compared to 194.31 across Canada; for cannabis trafficking or production it's 12.01 per 100,000 versus 29.32 per 100,000 nationally; for cocaine trafficking or production, the York number is 4.75 per 100,000 in York, vs. 19.73 per 100,000 nationally; for other controlled drugs, in York it's 7.17 per 100,000 compared to 23.41 per 100,000 nationally.

The Youth Criminal Justice Act offences rate is 1.38 per 100,000 in York vs. 16.74 per 100,000 in Canada.