It's funny how I was just talking to a friend in Hong Kong about safety and crime in Vancouver last night. He used to live/study/work here, and he was spooked by the recent stabbing incident outside the Metropolis Apple Store:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DPRoRiEiRxJ/
Official VPD report says violent crime is at a 20-year all time low. Toronto and several GTA cities are also claiming crime rates have gone down significantly as well:
IMO COVID really sent crime rates into a massive tail spin as people lost jobs, homeless numbers went up, city revenues and services were reduced, and our cities in general look significantly worse. As we gradually move away from that COVID malaise era, the serious problems are improving.
That said, the perception of public safety does not seem to have measurably improved. We continue to be plagued by serious homelessness / drug addiction / mental health / encampment issues, and these definitely give us a pretty negative impression of public safety. The random mental health unprovoked attacks are obviously not helping either.
Now add the brazen and recurring jewlery store robberies (esp in Toronto), as well as the Indian gang wars / cocersion, they all just make people on edge and feel unsafe.
I also agree with 68style's assessment here:
Quote:
Originally Posted by 68style
You just have a different interface with Canada than you did as a kid, you weren't reading the news and social media and talking to a large social network. Go look at the stats, rates have not change significantly year to year to support your viewpoint.
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in that the much wider exposure to news and social media is skewing our perception of reality. News reporting -- be they mainstream or social media -- are just so prevalent and easily accessible now, and we are being presented with live feeds or videos of the incidents as they happen, and there are follow up stories to them as well. Our preceptions are just hit differently when we see it in real-time visual form (ie. video) versus back then when we only read about it in the news. The visual presentation really magnifies the impact these news create on us. (Whereas we probably wouldn't feel much if we just read about it in printed form as words, or listened to it in audio form through the radio.