Among Canadian cities, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan has the fourth highest homicide rate. Still, on a global scale, it is a comparatively safe place. Contrast this with Saskatoon’s inner-city. Five core neighbourhoods in Saskatoon have a homicide rate that is 35 percent higher than Democratic Republic of Congo, one of the most murderous countries on earth. How bad is it there? The Government of Canada presently recommends avoiding non-essential travel to the Congo.
After eight homicides in 2014, Statistics Canada reported Saskatoon’s homicide rate to be 2.61 per 100,000. Seven of these deaths were in the neighbourhoods of Caswell Hill, King George, Meadowgreen, Mount Royal, and Pleasant Hill. Using only the population of these inner-city neighbourhoods, the homicide rate is 38.46 per 100,000. If inner-city Saskatoon were a country, it would be the seventh most homicidal nation on earth, just ahead of Jamaica and just behind El Salvador.
[This map shows the location of all eight homicides in Saskatoon in 2014. It also highlights the five inner city neighbourhoods being examined.]
“For years and years my neighbourhood was a sheltered little area,” says Owen Woytowich who lives in Saskatoon’s Mount Royal. “Now I see it everywhere. You can actually feel it at night. They can put a man safely on the moon. I don’t feel safe walking in my neighbourhood at night.”
Woytowich, 32, grew up in Mount Royal just down the street from where he now lives with his pregnant wife and two-year-old son. The baby is expected any day. “The neighbourhood has changed a lot in the last ten years,” he says. “The inner-city is getting bigger. It’s crazy.”
Tammy Morrison now lives near Woytowich in Mount Royal, she used to live in Pleasant Hill. “That was intimidating,” she says. “I think living in a city one has to be aware of their surroundings. No matter the size.”
Woytowich and Morrison’s neighbourhood is among the oldest and poorest parts of the city. The average household income in Mount Royal is $53,554 per year. The other four inner-city neighbourhoods are similar. Morrison’s old neighbourhood, Pleasant Hill, occupies the lowest spot at just over $36,000 per year. It is no surprise that locals often refer to it as, “Not so Pleasant Hill.” All five inner-city neighbourhoods are well below the city’s average household income of $82,543 per year.
“Poverty is the biggest predictor of violence,” says Dr. Maria Tcherni-Buzzeo. “The higher the poverty rate, the higher the homicide rate. Homicides tend to be highly clustered in the inner cities.”
Tcherni-Buzzeo is an assistant professor in the Henry C. Lee College of Criminal Justice and Forensic Sciences, University of New Haven. She studies the causes of violence. “There are many correlations to poverty, violence is just one. Divorce rate is another.” Tcherni-Buzzeo’s research has found that addressing the mental health of youth reduces delinquency.
“One of the high correlations to poverty is the mental health of children,” she says. “Prescribing psychotropic medication to children with psychiatric conditions clearly decreases delinquency.” She does not advocate overmedicating. Rather, she simply notes that a whole host of problems come with poverty and some of them, possibly including the mental health of young people, create circumstances which increase homicide rates in the long term.
“You see kids wandering around at all hours with no supervision,” Woytowich says. “If they had something to do maybe they wouldn’t get into trouble.”