By Jan Grabowiecki
Over a 5-day span in March, the Ottawa Citizen reported on three separate crime incidents in Lowertown. The headlines are clear:
“Police seeking suspects after shots and a stabbing in Lowertown”
“Ottawa police investigate after gun found in ByWard Market”
“Shot fired during King Edward Avenue robbery”.
Number of articles that mention crime in Byward market Based
on total monthly articles in Ottawa Sun and Ottawa Citizen
For folks who don’t live or work in Lowertown, this could foster an impression that our neighbourhood isn’t safe. But in reality, how safe is our community and how safe do our residents actually feel? With the help of two university of Ottawa students, Martha Paiz and Isabella Richmond, the Lowertown Community Association (LCA) tried to answer these questions, drawing on different sources of information.
As official crime statistics in Ottawa are only available at the ward level, their research first looked at granular data from Ottawa Police’s Crime Mapping Tool. Caution is required in interpreting this preliminary incident response data (also referred to as ‘calls-for-service’) and the fact that it is only available for the past 6 months doesn’t allow for a meaningful comparison over time. Focusing on the ByWard market area, a few findings nonetheless stick out: since August 2014, thefts account for 45% of all crime-related calls-for-service and occur most frequently in the afternoon. About 60% of calls-for-service for violent crimes (assault, robbery, sexual assault) occurred between 8 pm and 3 am.
Since the media can influence people’s perceptions of crime, the researchers also compiled articles from the Ottawa Citizen and Ottawa Sun on crime in the ByWard market since 2012. They found that there was a spike in reporting on crime in the ByWard Market in 2014: an average of 3 articles per month, compared to less than 1 per month over the previous 2 years. Crime interpreted by the researchers as being directly associated with nightlife accounts for roughly half of all articles. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean that crime is increasing in the ByWard market – for instance, a few articles in September 2014 highlight a blitz by the Ottawa Police to crack down on disorderly behaviour in the area, which would be expected to have actually reduced crime. But more media attention could be impacting perceptions of the area’s safety.
So how safe do residents feel in our neighbourhood? Some of you might recall that a LCA survey of 180 residents in 2012 found that 80% felt safe, and 16% felt somewhat safe in the ByWard Market during the day – but that only 24% felt safe, and 48% felt somewhat safe in the market at night. A more recent survey in 2014 of 125 Lowertown East residents offers insights into the safety perceptions east of King Edward: among the good news is that 82% consider their neighbourhood a great place to live and 61% feel that their community is safer than it was the previous year. On the other hand, the survey indicates that 68% consider illegal drugs a problem in their community and 65% don’t feel safe walking alone at night.
Crime data not easily available for neighbourhoods
All of these sources of information offer insights into crime patterns and perceptions of crime in different parts of our community. However, to better understand how crime in all of Lowertown has evolved over several years, the LCA has submitted a Freedom of Information request to Ottawa police, seeking crime data for Lowertown since 2005. The cost to compile these figures is estimated to total $2,400. The association is searching for partners to share these costs, while working with councillor Fleury to examine why neighbourhood- level crime data is not made publicly available, as it is in many other Canadian cities.
According to Norman Moyer, safety liaison of the LCA, “Over the last decade, the Ottawa Police and other stakeholders have taken steps to reduce crime in this area. We believe that these measures have had a positive impact, but the number of bars has been expanding, which favours some types of criminal activity. As a community, we can only tell if we’re getting better or worse with crime data over several years.”