Afraid of the dark? Nights safer in 2006

By Kenyon Wallace

Dark alleys and drugs. Prostitutes and pimps. Gangs and guns. Centretown at night is perceived by many as a dangerous place.

But when it comes to robberies, break and enters and vehicle thefts, there is no significant difference between day and night. The findings come from an analysis of Ottawa Police statistics on the occurrences of these specific crimes since January 2006. In 2005, these crimes accounted for 17 per cent of all offences in Ottawa.

The findings fly in the face of the fact that Ottawa residents increasingly feel unsafe in their neighbourhoods after dark, according to a public survey by Goss Gilroy Management Consultants. In 2006, 43 per cent of survey respondents said they didn’t feel safe walking alone in their neighbourhood after dark, compared with 35 per cent of survey respondents who reported such misgivings in 2002.

“The public perception of the night in Centretown being less safe is the result of a few high-profile crimes Ottawa has seen over the past few years, like the murders of Jennifer Teague and Ardeth Wood,” says Samir Bhatnagar, Ottawa Police staff sergeant for the central-west district.

“It’s logical that people will say they feel less safe,” he says.

But Sgt. Bhatnagar says night crimes don’t usually involve the average citizen.

“Victims and perpetrators of night crime tend to be those who are involved in drugs, prostitution and live high-risk lifestyles.”

Crime declining

When the scope is expanded to include all crimes, the news gets better. Even though Centretown has the second-highest crime rate in the city, a leading Ottawa criminologist says the area will likely see a decline in crime in the coming years.

“Crime is declining in Ottawa and I would suspect that Centretown would be following the same trend. More than likely it’s exceeding the trend,” says Ron Melchers, a criminology professor at the University of Ottawa who has been studying crime for 30 years.

Melchers says crime is on the decline because the area has become more prosperous.

“The demographic in Centretown is changing,” Melchers

explains.

“There are a lot of young people living here, and quite frankly, they’ve got other things to do instead of getting into crime.”

When it comes to violent crimes, defined as crimes where there is contact between the victim and the offender, Melchers says location has little to do with it. “Of course there is the small number of highly severe – very severe – incidents. They don’t tend to occur with a lot of geographic pattern. A lot of them are domestic so they tend to occur where people live.”

Majority during day

Centretown News analyzed crime data released by the Ottawa Police for the period from Jan. 1 to Nov. 19 of this year. The year-to-date crime statistics from the area show that 45 per cent of residential break and enters, 38 per cent of commercial break and enters and 36 per cent of vehicle thefts occurred between the hours of 6 p.m. and 6 a.m.

The rest – the majority of such incidents – occurred between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m.

According to Ottawa Police, a break and enter occurs when a person illegally enters a property, while robberies involve personal contact with the robber.

Robberies also include purse-snatching and muggings. With a rate of 54 per cent occurring after dark, robberies were the only major crime that occurred at a slightly higher rate at night.

Even though residential break and enters were the most common of all crimes committed at night, Melchers says that residents should be more concerned with what happens when no one is home during the day.

“Kids at school who are on their lunch breaks or on recess commit a lot of break-ins. The hours between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. are the most common times.”

Police still busy

All of this is good news for Zubi Ujjainwala. Since 1964, she and her husband have been running Aziz and Company, a business that imports silver, clothing and linens from India. Their Centretown store at the corner of Bank and Gilmour streets is a neighbourhood institution.

“About five years ago, crime at night used to be a lot worse around here,” Ujjainwala says.

“We’ve had our windows broken and our door kicked in. We even had someone break in here on Christmas Eve. But over the past five years, it’s gotten a lot better.”

So if there isn’t much difference between night and day, what are we so afraid of?

Timothy Johnston, a psychologist at the University of Windsor, says most people perceive night to be more dangerous than day because of what they are taught from a young age.

“When you’re young, your parents tell you it’s dangerous to be out at night, so they set curfews,” Johnston says over the phone from his Windsor office.

Johnston says messages from the media about crimes at night, combined with parental warnings, only serve to frighten people.

“It’s a spiral effect. The media makes people think it’s dangerous at night and parents reinforce this when they set curfews or tell their kids to be careful.”

But Sgt. Bhatnagar says he doesn’t want to give the impression that the police don’t have enough to do.

“We still deal a lot with drug issues and prostitution and, of course, break and enters,” he says.

“All I can say is that we’re extremely busy at night.”