It's been a long time running: New understandings of crime severity and specialization in Canada's longest running crime capital, North Battleford
File version
Author(s)
Griffith University Author(s)
Primary Supervisor
Other Supervisors
Editor(s)
Date
Size
File type(s)
Location
Abstract
Until last year, North Battleford, Saskatchewan has held the title for the “crime capital of Canada” with the highest crime severity index in the country. While the crime severity index is considered a better measure of crime seriousness compared to crime rates, it is still largely influenced by population size. As a result, the small municipality of North Battleford, with a population of approximately 14,000 people, may be inappropriately labelled as the crime capital. The current study compares the crime severity index and crime rates against the location quotient: a geographical measure. The location quotient calculates an area's crime specialization, compared to surrounding areas. In the period 2006 to 2018, findings indicate that North Battleford did not specialize in violent crime compared to other municipal police jurisdictions in Saskatchewan. Implications for policy and practice, as well as local narratives and stigmatization, are discussed.
Journal Title
The Canadian Geographer - Le Géographe canadien
Conference Title
Book Title
Edition
Volume
Issue
Thesis Type
Degree Program
School
Publisher link
Patent number
Funder(s)
Grant identifier(s)
Rights Statement
Rights Statement
© 2021 Canadian Association of Geographers / L'Association canadienne des géographes. This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Hodgkinson, T, It's been a long time running: New understandings of crime severity and specialization in Canada's longest running crime capital, North Battleford, The Canadian Geographer - Le Géographe Canadien, p. 1-14, 2021, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/cag.12703. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions.
Item Access Status
Note
This publication has been entered into Griffith Research Online as an Advanced Online Version.
Access the data
Related item(s)
Subject
Physical geography and environmental geoscience
Criminology
Human geography
Sociology
Social Sciences
Geography
location quotient
crime severity index
crime measurement
Persistent link to this record
Citation
Hodgkinson, T, It's been a long time running: New understandings of crime severity and specialization in Canada's longest running crime capital, North Battleford, The Canadian Geographer - Le Géographe Canadien, 2021. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/cag.12703