Although the number of homicides, attempted murders, robberies and abductions went up in Ottawa last year, the capital continues to be one of the safest cities in Canada, an Ottawa police report stated.
In 2008, the city had an eight per cent decline in the total number of non-traffic Criminal Code of Canada offences, falling to 41,056 from 44,536 offences in 2007.
These and other stats will be released when Ottawa police presents its crime and calls for service data for 2008 to the police services board Monday.
The report includes — for the city and broken down for each of the 23 wards in Ottawa —Criminal Code offences, calls for service received from the public and public survey results.
In addition to the number of crimes dropping citywide, 19 wards saw fewer offences in 2008, with only Alta Vista, Stittsville-Kanata West, Rideau-Goulbourn and Gloucester-South Nepean seeing increases.
Property crime also dropped by eight per cent between 2007 and 2008. Break and enters fell 10 per cent; motor vehicle theft, 23 per cent; theft under $5,000, eight per cent, mischief, six per cent; and fraud, two per cent.
There was also an eight per cent drop in assaults, leading to a three-year low in violent crimes, with 672 incidents per 100,000 residents.
