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Homicide down across GTA in 2008, up in Peel

lordmandeep said:
No doubt in Brampton some of the Jamaican crime gangs have moved in and Peel Police are more concern about saying everything is all right.
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The demolition of Regent Park has certainly changed the crime demographic of many areas. Even as nearby as the public housing units in St Jamestown, the friends living there are seeing a big jump in crime as Regent troublemakers move northward.

BTW, another migrant from Regent has been moving into Cabbagetown, and that's rats. Yep, big sewer rats are being found in our back yards. My neighbour's cat had one in my backyard last week, I wouldn't mind if he'd eaten it all, but he took only the head and left me the pants to clean up. Cabbagetown has lots of semi-feral cats, so the rats will quickly be under control me thinks.
 
Admiral Beez said:
Scarborough's not all bad. My uncle lives on Meadowcliffe south of Kingston Rd and it's a great area. He's down the hill near the bluffs, and due to the angle, even has septic.
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Guildwood is a decent part of Scarborough I must admit, although it's a bit far from the subway for my taste.
 
I don't understand how Peel suddenly became the most dangerous part of the GTA :-/
 
Admiral Beez said:
The demolition of Regent Park has certainly changed the crime demographic of many areas. Even as nearby as the public housing units in St Jamestown, the friends living there are seeing a big jump in crime as Regent troublemakers move northward.
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??? You write as if Regent Park has been razed. Ninety percent of it is still there, including all the larger buildings. Only one corner has been closed for redevelopment. Many have been rehoused within Regent Park ...

And Regent Park crime isn't THAT high - if you shift 10% of the crime from there to St Jamestown (which is what, a 5 to 10-minute walk?) ... I doubt anyone would notice.

Why all the prejudice?
 
Homicide stats always misleading

Homicide stats are always misleading. The reason why the homicide rate in Toronto is so low is because Toronto is very large, thus there is an equalizing effect. Toronto is probably most similar to NYC in this case: safe in most places but with concentrated areas of gun violence and poverty (Queens with around the same population as us had similar numbers of gun homicides in 2005). For instance the Jane and Finch area suffered a homicide rate of 15 per 100k in 2007, Malvern 12 and Malton 17. These are all many times higher than the Canadian and US national averages.
My point is this, while Toronto might be safe in most places, we have chosen to shrug off neighbourhoods with serious crime problems stemming from social and economic isolation. It can always be argued that yes Toronto only has 70-85 murders for a population of 2.5 million, but when you actually look behind the stats, you find neighbourhoods which consistently suffer crime and homicide rates which are well above both Canadian and US national averages. For instance if you look at the cumulative homicide rate for the years 2005-2007 for Jane and Finch you get 37. So whether homicide in general goes up or down it is little consolation to an increasing number of people, who are hard-working and pay taxes, who have to deal with homicide and gun violence. My uncle can pretty much count on at least one gun homicide within ear-shot of his house per year, for example.
 
Those are very interesting points. Did you calculate those neighbourhood statistics yourself? It is certainly true that violent crime in Toronto is overwhelmingly concentrated in certain neighbourhoods, though those neighbourhoods are still far safer than "bad" neighbourhoods in American cities. Still, those rates are quite high. It's interesting that while Jane and Finch and, increasingly, Malvern are now household names, few people recognize Malton as a high-crime area.
 
It's pointless to compare how "bad" neighbourhoods are since there is a mix of them on both sides of the border, and homicide always has a devastating effect on a community. I think people too often think of the most extreme US examples (like Camden or Detroit) when talking about US vs. Canadian crime and urban decay. These places experience extreme and multi-faceted economic and structural issues which has allowed them to deteriorate to that point, and they are far different than many other cases in cities like L.A. for instance. I think that "troubled" areas in Toronto face many of the same issues that neighbourhoods in Chicago or NYC face, but at the same time each are different from each other. You cannot quantify the pain or trauma involved in violent crime with statistics. Jane and Finch still experienced a shooting incidence rate of 36 the same year it recorded a homicide rate of 15, so its understandable that peoples' perception of safety is different. Yes I do calculate these rates by myself, I'm considering doing a master's thesis on issues pertaining to Jane and Finch. Ya, Malton was a bit of a surprise for me as well, lets hope it doesn't continue this pattern.
 
With Malton's recent homicide spike, people may be more likely to associate it with 'high crime.' It's certainly possible that one or a few gang leaders have moved from the 416 to Peel and are directly responsible for some of the increased homicide totals (which have spiked because the totals were so low to begin with).

I think it can be dangerous and not useful to compare neighbourhoods without recognizing the experience of an average person in these neighbourhoods...gang hits may give an area a higher homicide rate than adjacent areas, but the vast, vast, vast majority of people in either area are extremely unlikely to be murdered.
 
I thought St Jamestown was simply poor, I didn't know it had a reputation for crime.

And it is shocking to hear that Malton (a part of Mississauga?) has such a high crime rate. Although, they say Rexdale is dangerous, but my friend lives by Steeles and Martin Grove and the area doesn't seem even slightly dangerous even if on the surface it seems a little sketchy.
 
Malton: segregated from Mississauga, segregated from Brampton, segregated from Toronto. High crime in Malton is not a surprise at all. It will only get worse.
 
Cooool said:
I thought St Jamestown was simply poor, I didn't know it had a reputation for crime.
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I think you'll find that the two are inextricably linked.

A young woman was murdered in an apartment at Wellesley & Parliament on the weekend.
 
It is drugs/gangs and violance that are extricably linked. There are many upstanding and proud poor people who wouldn't resort to murder.
 
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