Rural crime rates consistently higher than in urban centres, StatCan data suggests

Crime rates in rural communities are consistently higher than in urban centres, suggests new data presented in a Statistics Canada report -- a long-term trend one criminologist says is unsurprising.The report, published Tuesday, found the rate of police-reported crime in rural Canadian communities was 34 per cent higher than the urban rate. That disparity was especially pronounced across the Prairies and in rural British Columbia.