By Jeffrey Bradley, Carleton University; Irvin Waller, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa; The Conversation
Recent federal and provincial election campaigns left the impression that spending more on prisons and policing is enough to stop violent and serious crime. (Pexels Photo)
Newly elected Prime Minister Mark Carney and the governing federal Liberals must work to reverse the trends in rising violent crime. Canada needs a federal minister with clear responsibility for the prevention of violent crime, supported by a deputy minister with no other responsibilities than stopping violence before it happens.
The evidence and successes in other countries suggest this approach could reduce violent and serious crime by 50 per cent in the next five years.
Canadian homicide rates have increased by 50 per cent in the past 10 years, returning to levels from the early 2000s. Black and Indigenous Canadians are victimized at rates several times higher than the national rate. Intimate partner and sexual violence are at epidemic levels, with one in three women experiencing some form in their lifetime.
Recent federal and provincial election campaigns left the impression that spending more on prisons and policing is enough to stop violent and serious crime.
But if long prison sentences reduced violent crime, then American cities would be the safest in the world — they are not. If higher police salaries resulted in less violence in Canada, then Edmonton and Winnipeg would be Canada’s safest cities — they are not.
How to truly reduce violent crime
Current crime-fighting proposals lack concrete, evidence-based actions and proven public health strategies that are known to significantly and cost-effectively reduce violent crime.
Over the last 50 years, research in Canada and internationally has identified a short list of programs proven to reduce violent crime by as much as 50 per cent within three years.
These initiatives are promoted by prestigious organizations such as the World Health Organization and the United Kingdom’s Youth Endowment Fund. The non-partisan Washington State Institute for Public Policy has also demonstrated the cost-effectiveness of many of these programs compared to the dominant systems of policing and incarceration. These initiatives include:
• Community violence interveners who build trust with the young men most involved in violence and help them go back to school, get job training and gain control over the emotions that lead to senseless violence.
• Stop Now and Plan, developed in Toronto, reaches young men as they enter adolescence to problem-solve instead of resorting to violence.
• The Black-led Youth Association for Academics, Athletics, and Character Education puts this science to work to tackle the high rates of deaths and injuries involving young Black men.
• Participation in courses that prevent sexual violence by shifting societal norms about consent and encouraging students to take action as bystanders.
The scene in the U.K. and the U.S.
Public health strategies that diagnose the risk factors that contribute to crime and implement effective solutions have cut crime in half in other countries.
In the 2000s, the Scottish city of Glasgow established a small violence reduction unit and organized community outreach to young men most involved in a violent lifestyle. The results were a 50 per cent reduction within three years.
By 2020, the U.K. replicated the violence reduction unit model across more than half the country, where independent evaluations have demonstrated a 25 per cent reduction in violent crime in areas with a unit. While some areas are still facing problems with youth violence, experts point to multi-agency work as most effective when partners prioritized youth violence.
Not satisfied with this rate of progress, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer promised in 2024 to halve knife crime in 10 years in addition to dramatically reducing the rates of violence against women in the same time period.
In 2023 in the United States, Joe Biden’s administration established the White House Office on Gun Violence Prevention and provided funding for cities to implement proven solutions, including community violence interveners.
Stakeholders said these efforts were helping to reduce homicides. After Donald Trump’s administration shuttered the office earlier this year, a Democratic senator tabled a bill to establish it permanently.
The mayor of Boston based her public health strategy on convening citywide departments, community organizations and experts in violence prevention. By increasing outreach workers and teaching problem-solving skills, Mayor Michelle Wu promised to reduce violence by 20 per cent within three years — only to overachieve by cutting it by 50 per cent in two years
What Canadian officials should do
The Ontario Police Act calls for public health strategies called community safety and well-being plans to tackle the risk factors that contribute to crime and monitor results.
When she was elected in 2023, Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow called for strategies to combat gun violence and violence against women. She called for “a scientific public health approach, like the one exemplified by Glasgow’s efforts to address violence as a public health issue (that) has proven effective in reducing violence.”
Chow emphasized targeted interventions and monitoring results. But her funding has not yet followed the vision. In 2025, only $5 million was earmarked for prevention efforts, while $48 million was needed for more police and emergency services to respond to the increase in violence in Toronto.
No Canadian officials are doing the smart planning or making the affordable and smart investments to reduce violent and serious crime significantly.
Carney can and should lead by example. The federal government can invest in stopping violence before it happens by:
- Developing the human capacity nationally for smart community safety planning;
- Establishing a knowledge centre on violence prevention;
- Shifting from its current funding model of short-term projects to partnering with the provinces via sustained and adequate funding of effective violence prevention programs.
Prevention saves money
Parliamentary committees have recommended an annual investment equivalent to five per cent of spending on police and corrections, or about $400 million federally, and $900 million from other orders of government.
Research, results and best practices make clear that a 25 per cent reduction in violent and serious crime could be achieved within five years, and a 50 per cent reduction in a decade.
That would mean 200 fewer lives lost and more than 500,000 fewer victims of violence in the next five years, and significantly less money — as much as $1.5 billion — spent annually on police and prisons.
Jeffrey Bradley, Ph.D. Candidate, Legal Studies, Carleton University and Irvin Waller, Emeritus professor of Criminology, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
