NCJ Number
80228
Journal
Police Journal Volume: 54 Issue: 4 Dated: (October-December 1981) Pages: 390-398
Date Published
1981
Length
9 pages
Annotation
This article compares statistics on armed robbery in Quebec Province with other Canadian provinces and major U.S. metropolitan areas and describes efforts to deal with the excessive number of armed robberies in Quebec.
Abstract
Quebec Province, particularly urban Montreal, has far surpassed the other Canadian provinces and metropolitan areas in the absolute number and rate of armed robberies. This has been especially true with the armed robberies of banking and quasi-banking institutions, although the rate of armed robbery for other than banking institutions has increased more rapidly in recent years. Armed robbery in Montreal is at a rate far behind New York, but close to cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit, and Washington, D.C. The Quebec Ministry of Justice recently created a task force to study the problem. The task force interviewed about 100 victims, more than 200 police, some armed robbery offenders, and members of the jutice system. The task force determined that the Montreal police structure is too decentralized to focus its resources effectively on the problem; consequently, the task force recommended the creation of a centralized squad of 75 police officers specially trained to investigate arned robberies for the whole of Montreal. Some of the members of the squad would have responsibility for certain types of victimized businesses, such as jewelry shops, small businesses, food stores, etc. The primary measure of the success of the squad is to be a reduction in armed robberies. A bibliography on armed robbery contains 33 listings.