OTTAWA, July 26 (UPI) -- A drop in Canadian crime rates is not due to government and police policies, a professor of criminolgy said.
A Statistics Canada report released Thursday said crime in Canada fell about 3 percent between 2011 and 2012, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported.
Governments and police have claimed responsibility for the drop in crime, but some experts say it is actually the result of broad long-term trends.
Most kinds of police-reported crime have been dropping steadily since 1991. Canada's overall crime rate has decreased by 26 percent since 2002.
"The one thing that's clear is this is a long-term trend and has nothing to do with any of the so-called crime policies of the government," said Anthony Doob, a professor of criminology at the University of Toronto.
Doob said Canada's year-to-year drop is in line with other countries that have been experiencing decreased crime in the past two decades.
