Big cities often get a bad rap when it comes to perception of crime a new poll suggests.
Research by Mainstreet Research for PostMedia indicates the public has a very different view of how safe Canada’s cities are compared to crime data and each other.
It shows cities such as Toronto and Montreal, which have some of the lowest big city crime rates in the country, are perceived as unsafe, while others such as Moncton and Regina that rank high in crime rate are perceived as much safer than they are.
It is unclear why Mainstreet and media outlets are reporting the results based on crime rate rather than crime severity index (CSI). The CSI is a better overall measure of safety because it weights types of crime. For the purposes of this analysis, however, the crime rate and CSI rankings are close enough.
It is interesting to note that Toronto and Montreal, which rank one and two in terms of population, rank 14 and 13 respectively in public perception of safety while they are actually second and fifth in terms of CSI.
Regina and Moncton rank 11 and 14 by population, six and three by safety perception and 14 and 11 in reality.
There appears to be a big versus small city bias among the people polled.
It should also be noted that there is some arbitrariness in the selection of cities in the poll, apparently to make sure all the provinces were represented. For example, St. John’s and Moncton are actually only the 48th and 79th most populated cities in the country. Charlottetown does not even make the top 100. Of course, that is because there are a lot of suburbs of cities such as Toronto and Vancouver that are technically big cities in their own right.
Nevertheless, this is about perception versus reality and ultimately how it is pertinent to Yorkton.
As noted, big versus small may have some impact on perception. Media coverage may also play a significant role. Quito Maggi, Mainstreet president, said most of the cities in the poll did not get the rankings they deserved because media coverage skews perceptions.
He explained that Ottawa, which ranked as Canada’s safest city in the poll is constantly in the national news, but because of politics not crime
This likely accounts also for Regina’s perceived safety. While we in Saskatchewan get the news about every shooting and robbery in the Queen City, most of Canada does not.
Maggi believes we can also thank our premier for the skewed perception. “He’s standing up for pipelines, energy sector, other issues that are important to Saskatchewan so that’s the type of news stories that come out of Regina,” he told Global News.
The fact of the matter remains we have a crime problem in our cities, our province and our region.
This is very relevant to Yorkton as well. Readers may recall that in July StatsCan released its 2015 CSI rankings for cities with populations greater than 10,000. North Battleford and Prince Albert ranked first and second in the country. Among the country’s census metropolitan areas (CMAs, cities over 100,000 population), Saskatoon and Regina are number one and two in the nation (33 and 35 overall).
We have seven cities in the Top 50 and only nine cities in the province.
Yorkton is third in the province and 25th in the country.
At least we are perceived well, though.
And speaking of perception, aside from a brief blip of awareness when the crime statistics are published, we tend to stick our heads in the sand for the rest of the year.
Even when they come out, we tend to make excuses. Our own mayor does not trust the statistics. Much of the media coverage from this latest poll has brought up the same tired old arguments about most of our crime being petty, which it is not, that is the point of the CSI.
We need to wake up.
