There were no homicides in Greater Victoria in 2013, the first time that’s happened in more than a decade.

That’s down from four homicides in 2012, six in 2011, and five in 2010 — numbers which reflect an average of five homicides a year for Greater Victoria, according to Statistics Canada crime data.

article continues below

B.C. coroner Barb McLintock said she can’t remember a year in the last decade when there were no homicides in the capital region.

The Vancouver Island Integrated Major Crime Unit investigated three files on the Island in 2013: A suspicious death in Victoria in May, the murder of 76-year-old Kenneth Benjamin Hein found dead in his Ladysmith home on May 16, and the murder of Hanson Island woman, Jennifer McPherson. Her husband, Traigo Ehkid Andretti, has been charged with second-degree murder.

Homicides across the Vancouver area were also down significantly. There were 53 murders and suspicious deaths in Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley, according to the Vancouver Sun, compared with 83 in 2009, at the height of a gang war.

“Compared to Metro Vancouver, the capital region has been a peaceable kingdom,” said Robert Gordon, who heads the criminology department at Simon Fraser University.

There has been a steady overall decline of violent crime in Canada over the last two decades.

According to Statistics Canada, there were 543 homicides in Canada in 2012, down 10 per cent from 2011 and the lowest rate since 1966.

“Most certainly, there's been a steady decline in the crime rate across [Canada] for several years and B.C. and the large metropolitan areas of B.C. have been following that trend,” Gordon said.

Neil Boyd, a criminologist at Simon Fraser University, said a variety of factors could affect the violent crime rate.

One could be a demographic shift, in that there are fewer young men in the population, a segment of the population that is disproportionately responsible for violent crime.

“Our culture has shifted to be a lot less accepting of violence and to be a lot more interested in promoting different kinds of rights,” such as a stronger protection of women’s rights, gay rights and protection over the most vulnerable in society such as children and animals, Boyd said.

kderosa@timescolonist.com