Peel Region remains one of the Safest among Canada’s Largest Municipalities

Region of Peel – Peel Regional Police is pleased to announce that once again Peel Region ranks amongst the safest communities in Canada, according to Stats Canada 2021 Police-Reported Crime Statistics in Canada[AS1] .

Among Canada’s seven largest municipalities with a million or more population, Peel Region ranked first for lowest Crime Severity Index (CSI) at 35.20, nearly half the national CSI (73.68) and much lower than Ontario’s rate (56.21). Additionally, Peel Regional Police’s weighted clearance rate of 40.78 is well above the national (35.78) and Ontario rates (39.52).

“I am proud to acknowledge that Peel Region continues to be one of the safest regions in all of Canada. This is all thanks to our diligent and dedicated officers, civilians and committed community partners who continue to work together to ensure that the Region remains a safe place for all to live, work, and visit.” – Chief Nishan Duraiappah 

Peel Regional Police, with the leadership of Chief Nishan Duraiappah, continues to move forward on being the most progressive, innovative and inclusive police service in Canada. This commitment has meant changes to the way we serve and meet the needs of our community. As such, there has been re-allocation of resources and employees to areas with emergent needs for better service delivery. One of these critical measures has been the implementation of a Community Safety Well-Being Plan (CSWB) in collaboration with regional and community partners. This included the establishment of:

• Our Way Forward: A Strategy to Operationalize CSWB, which focuses on the way we serve the community, address underlying needs that generate many of calls for service (mental health, addiction, homelessness), and requiring us to be proactive in how we address risk factors that result in crime, victimization and other community harms.
• A dedicated Mental Health and Addictions Strategy, focused on collaboration with a wide range of community partners, to strengthen how we support impacted individuals through non-police crisis responses and strategies.
• An Intimate Partner Violence unit to provide enhanced trauma-informed response and produce consistent, collaborative and seamless wraparound service delivery to survivors of intimate partner violence and their families through Safe Centre of Peel.
• An expanded Mobile Crisis Rapid Response Team, partnering specially trained officers with a crisis worker to respond to the ever-increasing calls for service involving persons suffering from mental health challenges or in an addictions-related crisis.
• A Safer Roads Team using evidence-based targeted enforcement on high-risk drivers with multiple driving suspensions and/or prohibitions.

We still have much work ahead of us and we are committed to continuously refining and providing improved delivery of service to the evolving needs of our community. One of those areas is with sexual assaults that include intimate partner violence.

In 2022, there was a rise in Level 1 Sexual Assaults across the nation, which accounted for a 40% increase in violent CSI. Peel Region is no exception to these stats. Our data indicates an increase of 30% from 2020 to 2021 in Level 1 sexual assaults. While this is below the Canada and Ontario rates, Level 1 sexual assaults is a prominent issue that needs addressing. This is why we are committed to working with our partners at the Safe Centre of Peel to build better capacity in providing wrap-around supports and services to survivors of intimate partner violence and human trafficking.

Guns is another challenging issue that affects our community. In 2021, four in ten homicides were firearms related in Canada. In Peel, 10 of the 14 homicides in 2021 involved firearms. While Canada and Ontario both saw increases in the homicide rate per 100,000, Peel had a -17.5% decrease and showed a lower rate (0.94) than both Canada (2.06) and Ontario (1.87). Peel Police supports multifaceted strategies to stop gun smuggling from the US, gun trafficking across region and to prevent against their use in criminality, victimization and further harm in our community. We continue to engage with regional, provincial and federal partners on how to best address this issue from both an enforcement and preventative lens, and implement sound solutions to stop guns from entering into Peel and other jurisdictions across Ontario.

For a more in-depth explanation of how these statistics are reported, please visit: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/pub/85-002-x/2022001/article/00013-eng.pdf?st=5vitY0qx.

Appendix A: 2021 Crime Severity Index and Weighted Clearance

Appendix B: 5 year comparative Sexual Assault Data

 Appendix C: 5 year Homicide Rates per 100, 0000 data