Canadians' perceptions of personal safety and crime, 2014

• Published in: Juristat 2017-12, p.1-35
• Main Author: Perreault, Samuel
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Assaults; Canadians; Censuses; Criminal statistics; Hate crimes; Immigration; Mental health; Neighborhoods; Perceptions; Polls & surveys; Public safety; Sex crimes; Victimization; Victims of crime
• ISSN: 0715-271X; 1209-6393

[...]the presence of social disorder and antisocial behaviours also seems to have an unsettling effect because these are indicators that more serious crimes might be committed or that the community or the police have been unable to adequately control deviant behaviour (Intravia et al. 2016; Fitzgerald 2008; Sampson et al. 1997).1 Since a sense of safety is only partly associated with actual levels of crime, it is important to measure it accurately and to understand factors that may contribute to a sense of safety.Overall, the variation across the country in the proportion of people who were very satisfied with their personal safety from crime reflects differences in police-reported crime rates across the country (see Boyce 2015).[...]the highest proportions of people who were very satisfied were recorded in the Atlantic provinces and Ontario-the provinces with the lowest crime rates-while the lowest proportions of people who were very satisfied were posted in the Prairies and the Territories, where crime rates are higher.[...]for both men and women, the characteristics that seemed to have the greatest influence on their feeling of safety were perceiving social disorder in the neighbourhood (e.g., incivility and "petty crimes" such as drug dealing or vandalism) and the belief that the number of crimes in the neighbourhood is as high as or higher than elsewhere in Canada.[...]the results of the logistic regression analysis and multilevel analysis were very similar.