A study of homicides in Edmonton shows that the majority of victims are young, Caucasian men who know their attacker.

The study also shows the weapon of choice has been edged weapons like knives, which poses a problem for police.

“You can't outlaw knives,” police Chief Rod Knecht said following the presentation.

“You got to focus on the criminal behaviour and the criminal and I think that's where we as a police service have to focus on.”

According to Knecht, finding out how to prevent violent crimes was the main purpose of the study, which also recorded on average victims were around 34 years old and most offenders around 28 years old.

“It tells us that we from a prevention perspective have got to focus on youth right across the spectrum.”

Conducted by MacEwan University’s Sandy Jung the study looked at 124 homicides between 2007 and 2012.

According to her analysis 56.5 per cent of homide victims knew their attacker and 57 per cent of the crimes were committed with an edge weapon and 25 per cent of offenders used a firearm.

Jung said the data offered some clarity on what the city should focus on to prevent violent crimes in the future.

“A large portion of both victims and the offenders lacked high school education. They both also lacked any employment at the time of the homicide and because we're talking about a large proportion this has huge indicators in terms of what we can do, some of the things you have control over in your community,” she explained.

“All these kinds of things play into what we can do as a police service in going forward and seeing where we can provide prevention activities as well as partner with other agencies, levels of government in order to prevent future acts of violence,” Knecht said.

“Maybe we can build that into the treatment for that person going forward. But we as the police, we have to bring that forward, we have to bring that forward to the prosecutor, get the defense council involved and certainly the judge at the end of the day.”

However, Staff Sgt. Bill Clark said most Edmontonians should not be concerned about their safety.

“If you are staying out of trouble and leading a normal, productive life, lifestyle, your chance of being a victim of a violent crime is very, very slim.

“If we have 30 homicides in Edmonton in a year maybe a handful are stranger on stranger homicides,” he added.

Some of the other information in the study includes:

  • 56.6 per cent of homicides were committed in a private residence
  • 33.3 per cent happened in central Edmonton, 26.6 per cent occurred in the northeast, 15.3 per cent were in the southeast, 11.3 per cent were on the west side of the city.
  • 48 per cent of homicides occured between midnight and 7 a.m.
  • 55.6 per cent happened on the weekends.
  • 74 per cent of victims were men, 25.2 per cent  were women.
  • 90 per cent of offenders were men and 10 per cent were women.
  • 17.2 per cent of victims were homeless and 22.3 per cent of offenders were homeless
  • 77.9 per cent did not complete high school, 86.1 per cent of offenders did not finish high school
  • 8 per cent of the victims had gang affiliations, 20 per cent of offenders had gang affiliations
  • 51.8 per cent of victims had substance abuse problems, 51.6 per cent of offenders had substance abuse problems
  • 52 per cent of victims were unemployed, 70.6 per cent of offenders were unemployed
  • 46 per cent of victims and 59 per cent of offenders had a history of violent offences
  • 40 per cent of victims and 49 per cent of offenders served jail time.
  • 65  per cent of victims and 83 per cent of offenders had criminal associates.

The findings were presented to the Edmonton police commission at a meeting Thursday night.

With files from Amanda Anderson