VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Statistics Canada revealed today crime rates are at the lowest level since 1972.

Should we expect them to dip even lower as the Tories’ omnibus crime bill comes into effect? An SFU criminologist doesn’t think so.

“I don’t think the omnibus crime bill will have any real effect on the crime rates,” Neil Boyd explains. “It’s not directed at violent crime. It’s directed at removal of conditional sentencing and a variety of mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes.”

Boyd believes we will be worse off economically.

“You’re going to spend an awful lot of money to incarcerate more offenders, we don’t know how many yet, but certainly more and we’re not going to get any kind of increase in social safety,” he notes. “It’s a very costly bill. There’s no good evidence it will have the kind of impact on crime rates that we would hope for.”

“If we look at the crime severity index, all categories of serious crime are down over the last 10-15 years,” Boyd claims. “Unfortunately, the crime bill is not about best evidence but it’s an ideologically driven bill that would appear to cater to the conservative base but has little to do with lowering the rates of crime.”

Boyd adds the trend indicates crime rates will continue to drop, unrelated to the omnibus crime bill.

“We’ve had some very tremendous revolutions in rights – children’s rights, animal rights, gay rights, women’s rights and there’s much less tolerance for violence.”

As well, he thinks an aging population contributes to the trend because they are less likely to be involved in crime.