Crime in Montreal - Action News

By and large, Montreal is a safe place. Among Canadas larger cities, it has one of the lowest crimes rates, with 4,100 incidents per 100,000 people in 2015 (Ottawa, Quebec city and Toronto are even lower).

Most of the crime in the city is non-violent. They're mainly property crimes like thefts and vandalism. And the city gets safer every year. The crime rate has nearly halved since 1998.

Since January 2015, Montreal police has published detailed data on certain, but not all, types of crimes. This website shows a breakdown by area and tracks its evolution through time. Read more about how this page was made in the methodology.

Crimes in Montreal

Descriptions of crime categories

Car theft

A car, truck or motorcycle that was stolen.
Theft from a vehicle

Includes property taken from the inside of a vehicle or parts of the vehicle.
Breaking and entering

Includes invasion of public and private properties and theft from a residence.
Mischief

Includes graffiti and damage to property.
Armed robbery

Any kind of robbery where violence or threats were used.
Fatal crimes

Includes murders, manslaughter, and criminal negligence.

Crimes per month

The charts below show the total of crimes per month. Certain crimes, like theft from vehicles, breaking and entering and mischief have cyclical patterns. Our winters are too cold even for petty criminals.

Violent crimes like armed robbery have the lowest rates. The most serious ones, that end in death, are so infrequent that they hardly register on a chart.

Average per month
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When crimes are reported

Police dont disclose the exact time a crime was reported, whether it was during the day, evening or night. Most crimes are reported during the day. Its possible that many offences that happened overnight are only reported the next morning. An exception is breaking and entering. Victims tend to report these right away, according to criminologist Rmi Boivin at the Universit de

DAY : 8:00 to 16:00
EVENING : 16:00 to 0:00
NIGHT : 0:00 to 8:00

How these visuals were made

Since April 2016, Montreal police has released data on individual crimes committed on the island going back to January 2015. Using geospatial software, individual crimes were aggregated into a hexagonal grid and displayed as a map. A detailed methodology, including the computer code used to generate the graphics, can be accessed here.

Upcoming feature: Showing change in crimes

An upcoming feature of this site is showing significant rises and drops in crimes between data releases. As Montreal police releases more data, well have better material to make comparison between years. Stay tuned.