ABSTRACT
One set of crime statistics that is particularly interesting is the pattern of Canadian provincial crime rates: a generally increasing crime rate moving east to west that has been present for at least 40 years (see Silver, 2007 for a recent example of this reporting). Curiously, there has been relatively little research investigating this phenomenon, with only two studies finding statistically significant relationships. The earliest investigations of this phenomenon (Giffen, 1965, 1976) find moderate support for higher provincial crime rates being related to population growth and the presence of urbanization; Hartnagel (1978) finds little support for the age and sex composition of provincial populations affecting provincial crime rates; Kennedy et al. (1991) find that provincial homicide rates are related to income inequality and social disorganization; Hartnagel (1997) finds that provinces with greater inward migration have greater crime rates; and most recently, Daly et al. (2001) find that income inequality partially explains differences in lethal levels of violence.
