The GPI crime report has been reviewed and received feedback from Hans Messinger, Director of Industry Measures at Statistics Canada, from analysts at the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics and the Nova Scotia Department of Justice, and from independent researchers, particularly Dr. Don Clairmont, criminologist, in the Department of Sociology at Dalhousie University. Initial funding for the Nova Scotia GPI has come from the N.S. Department of Economic Development and Tourism and A.C.O.A. under the Canada-Nova Scotia Cooperation Agreement on Economic Diversification. The province also has the lowest incarceration rate in Canada. Nova Scotia imprisons out of every 1,600 citizens, compared to one out of 900 in Canada, and one out of 150 in the U.S.A. Nova Scotia has one-sixth the crime rate for serious violent crimes as the U.S. Nova Scotia's comparative advantage in crime cost savings is gradually eroding. According to the official crime statistics, Nova Scotians today are four times as likely to be victims of crime as their parents a generation ago.
Higher crime translates into higher costs, higher prices and higher taxes.
Across the country crime is highly correlated with unemployment rates. Crime rates peaked during the recessions of the early 1980s and early 1990s as unemployment rates hit all-time highs. Further details and complete copies of the 220-page GPI report will be available free to the press at a press conference with the report authors, to be held in the Lord Dalhousie Room, Arts and Administration Building, Dalhousie University, at 11am on Wednesday, April 14, and hosted by Dr. Don Clairmont, criminologist, Department of Sociology, Dalhousie University, a reviewer of the study, who will also comment on the findings.