ABSTRACT
But how much of this pattern is truly present? Certainly the crime rates are higher as one moves west across the Canadian landscape, but are the western provinces really more violent, for example, or is there simply more crime in these provinces with the proportion of violent crime similar to that of the rest of the provinces? This chapter adds to the criminological literature through the use of a geographical measure of crime, the location quotient, which was discussed in Chapter 5. Rather than measuring crime relative to some population at risk, the location quotient measures crime specialization: how much of crime X is in a given province relative to the whole of Canada? Or, how much of crime X is in a given municipality relative to the whole metropolitan region? The location quotient has been used in a number of ecological studies of crime, but not in the context of understanding the east-to-west pattern of crime in Canada or at the municipal level. As shown below, this different measure of crime reveals that the western provinces do not disproportionately specialize in all crime classifi cations. Rather, different provinces specialize in different crime classifi cations. Therefore, although one may be more likely to be a victim of crime in the western provinces, as indicated by provincial crime rates, one is not more likely to be a victim of all crimes. In addition, municipalities that have high crime rates do not necessarily have a high degree of crime specialization in that crime, and vice versa.
