Canadians see drugs as biggest blight on their neighborhoods: StatsCan

"A sense of danger is often even more important that actual danger. Open drug dealing and public signs of drug use can lead to a rapid collapse of a neighborhood. Poverty is not the cause of the problem, rather it is a symptom. A poor neighborhood can be safe and orderly but a drug infested community is not safe, orderly or prosperous. Canadians are right to see drugs as a very telling sign of a neighborhood in distress. "

July 15, 2008

THE CANADIAN PRESS

OTTAWA - Drug use and drug dealing were commonly seen by Canadians as the biggest problem plaguing their neighborhoods, according to a study released Tuesday by Statistics Canada.

The report looked at Canadians' perception of signs of crime across 12 major cities. Signs of crime included physical crime, such as graffiti, litter and vandalism, and social crime, such as loud parties, public drunkenness and prostitution.

Between nine and 19 per cent of people deemed drug dealing and drug use the biggest blight on their neighborhood.

Overall, nine per cent of people living in Canada's 12 largest cities saw garbage or litter lying around to be a problem in their neighborhood.

The study was based on data collected in the 2004 General Social Survey monitoring changes and emerging trends in Canadian society.

The report said a person's perception of signs of crime, or incivility, stem from "a constellation of influences," including personal experience, the tone of media reports about the "crime" problem in a city and/or neighborhood and anecdotes recounted by significant people in the individual's life.

Statistics Canada social science researcher Leslie-Anne Keown said the survey was the first of its kind asking in-depth questions concerning perception of signs of crime at a national level.

Keown said among the most interesting findings was that perception of signs of crime in one area, such as drug use or drug dealing, were generally seen with other types of incivilities having to do with conditions in the environment, like littering and graffiti.

"Basically, when we see one we see the other, if we live in a downtown kind of urban area, whereas when we live in a suburb we seem to see them less frequently linked together," she said.

Criminology expert Vincent Sacco said among the things requiring further exploration is what the implications of people's perception of signs of crime signify in the bigger picture.

"What we've found in several American studies, for example, is that when people perceive these things as problems, they have quite a different attitude towards their community than when they don't perceive them as problems," said Sacco, a professor with the sociology department at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont.

"In other words, they like the community less, they feel less comfortable in it, they may be less trusting of their neighbours, etc."

"There could be important implications that emerge out of those perceptions, but all this report does thus far, really, is describe to us what those perceptions are."

Sacco said law enforcement and other community agencies have been paying a lot of attention to the issue, with community policing initiatives in many Canadian cities oriented toward attempting to do something about incivility.

Sacco said the concept finds its origins in the "broken windows" idea of policing which stems partly out of New York City's experience - namely, if you want to do something about big crime problems in the city, you have to attack the smaller problems, which if left unattended can create an environment where bigger problems can emerge.

"The argument was that the way New York City got its crime rate down was by dealing with things like fare jumping on subways and people sleeping in the streets and people urinating in public ... that that's how you control more significant problems."