A new survey is showing that vandalism and crime are a bigger concern for Centretown residents than for other city residents.
The highlights of the Public Survey on Policing Services, presented to the Ottawa Police Services Board on March 23, has provided insight into Centretown residents’ perception of crime and safety in their neighbourhood.
“There were no real major surprises,” says Ryan McEachran, from the Ottawa Police Service’s corporate planning.
“We conduct the survey every three years [and] want to know what the public thinks when it comes to our business planning process.”
The report surveyed public opinion of the Ottawa Police Service.
Conrad Winn, founder of the company that ran the survey, Compas Inc, says the report shows Ottawa residents, including Centretown, are “deeply satisfied” with their police force.
“The majority (68 per cent) reported that the OPS are doing a good or very good job while almost none believe that performance is poor or very poor,” the report states.
This was the first year that the survey was divided into neighbourhoods – or wards – instead of being city wide, says McEachran.
All Ottawa neighbourhoods are most concerned about speeding cars and aggressive driving.
There were two key points in the report about Somerset ward.
“Residents of Rideau Vanier and Somerset wards appear to report a moderately higher than average incidence of being the victim or having a family member that had been the victim of a crime,” the report states.
Const. Nathan Hoedeman credits the dynamics of downtown for the slightly higher victimization and the concern over vandalism.
“It’s pedestrian, so there are a lot more people walking around, a lot more opportunities for theft,” says he says. “I just wouldn’t want people to think that we are talking about victimization as to robberies and assaults and beatings and that kind of stuff, because it is typically more minor thefts."
The survey shows minor thefts are more prominent in Ottawa.
“Of the 21 per cent of Ottawans who report being a victim of crime in 2008, the majority involved crimes against property (76 per cent) while approximately 16 per cent of crimes were against a person.”
Hoedeman says that people may not think of graffiti as a crime, but that too is a form of vandalism.
He says that downtown is a particular target for graffiti because more people have more opportunities to see it.
Hoedeman warns the statistics in the report shouldn't be taken out of context.
Even though some areas of the city might be targeted more, he says this doesn't necessarily mean they are unsafe.
“Downtown is a very safe place to live,” he says. “The fact that so many people are walking around does not lend itself well to doing crime out in broad daylight, or at night because there are a lot of people witnessing.”
Because the survey is a way of measuring public perceptions, this means that some statistics could be the result of media attention or word of mouth, McEachran says.
Ward-specific reports will be released later this spring.