Toronto:Safer Than You Think

TheStar.com - GTA - Toronto: Safer than you think
DAVID COOPER/TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO
How the cities were ranked

To assemble the rankings of the most dangerous and safest cities, Maclean's magazine used 2006 crime data from the Canadian Centre of Justice Statistics. The magazine then calculated the percentage difference from the national rate for six crimes – homicide, sexual assault, aggravated assault, vehicle theft, robbery plus breaking and entering – to determine the overall scores. Read the complete rankings here.
City's crime rate is ranked 26th in Canada, lower than most other urban centres, survey finds
March 14, 2008
Noor Javed
Staff Reporter

Watch your shadow. Lock your doors. Program 9-1-1 into your speed dial because this is, after all, a dangerous city.

Or so we thought.

On a list of the country's 100 most dangerous cities, Toronto doesn't even make it into the top 20, according to this week's cover story in Maclean's magazine.

Toronto was ranked 26th on the list, lower than most other urban centres including Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary and Regina, which was the most dangerous city.

"These results show what we've been saying for a long time," said Mark Pugash, a Toronto police spokesperson. "Toronto is, was and remains one of the safest cities in the country."

And many of the GTA's suburbs are even more crime-proof, with Halton, Peel and York regions in the top 20 safest places to live. The town of Caledon, north of Brampton, was named safest community.

The rankings were tabulated using 2006 Statistics Canada crime data – including homicides, sexual assaults, vehicle thefts, robberies and break-ins – for municipal police services in the most populous 100 cities or regions.

The numbers may say one thing, but fly in the face of a deteriorating public perception of Toronto, seen as a hub of urban violence where guns and gangs run rampant.

"Most people in Toronto think crime is going up and we are much more dangerous than we were 10 to 15 years ago," said Scot Wortley, a criminology professor at the University of Toronto. "Our homicide rate in Toronto was higher in the '70s than it is now."

Wortley blames the "fear-filled" perception of our neighbourhoods squarely on the media, which tend to focus on crime. "The fact is there is a big difference between perception and reality – and a lot of what people know about crime, they know from the media," he said.

An increased coverage of crime in mainstream media and the national interest in Toronto's sensational crimes play a part in tarnishing the city's image.

"If there is a crime like the Jane Creba shooting in Toronto, it is going to be national news ... People in Toronto very rarely hear about or care about murders that take place in Regina."

According to the list, Regina, Saskatoon and Winnipeg were the three most dangerous cities.

"In 2006, the GTA, including Mississauga and Peel, had a population of about 5,418,000 and there were 99 homicide victims," said Wortley. "In Regina, there were nine homicides but a population of only 200,000. If you looked at just the numbers, you would say Regina must be a much safer place."

But that doesn't take population size into account, he said. The homicide rate in Regina is 4.5 per 100,000 people. In Toronto, it's 1.8 homicides for 100,000 people.

The other influence is the rhetoric of law enforcement officials or politicians who focus on crime to garner public sympathy to boost budgets or foster their image as tough-on-crime crusaders, said Wortley.

But it is an increased presence of police on city streets that has helped keep crime rates down, said Pugash. "We have more officers on the streets patrolling than we have had in many, many years. One thing is clear – the public likes more police officers, and feel safer as a result."