The safety of the streets of Montreal is at the center of the municipal election campaign which concludes on Sunday. Mayoral candidate Denis Coderre says the metropolis is dangerous, while outgoing mayor Valérie Plante reiterates that the city is safe. Who is telling the truth?
The number of violent crimes perpetrated in Montreal as well as their severity has declined steadily since the turn of the century, a trend that mirrors that of several other metropolitan areas in the country.
With a violent crime severity index of 73.2 in 2020, the Quebec metropolis is doing better than Winnipeg, Vancouver and Calgary and the national average of 87.
On a Canadian scale – and even globally – Montreal is a very safe city, believes Marc Ouimet, professor of criminology at the University of Montreal. “People walk in the street, they are not afraid to go out at night, the level of insecurity seems to me to be quite low. In towns where people are afraid, they barricade themselves in their homes, ”he observes.
For the past thirty years or so, several crimes against the person, such as homicide and assault, have also experienced a decrease in the metropolis, adds the professor.
“A Montrealer is not really in danger, also attests Rémi Boivin, associate professor at the School of Criminology of the University of Montreal. His chances of suffering anything unpleasant in everyday life are almost zero ”. According to him, the seriousness of crimes has not necessarily decreased in Montreal since the turn of the century, but there are far fewer.
Against all expectations, the index for Toronto is below that of Montreal. However, the Queen City has also been the scene of numerous shootings in recent years, the number of which jumped by 60% between 2015 and 2020.
A stable level of crime
Montreal has also seen an upsurge in violence over the past year: it lists more than a hundred shootings in the first nine months of 2021 on its territory, almost as many as during the whole of 2020. La half of them are said to be linked to criminal gangs.
The increased accessibility to firearms and the use of social networks by young people between the ages of 16 and 20 explain, among other things, the recent outbreak of violence by firearms, explains Guy Ryan, ex-investigator at the SPVM. The unpredictability of their actions also complicates the prevention of such violence. ” These young ones [utilisent des armes à feu] at any time and any day. “
The special squads of the SPVM should reduce crime in Montreal, according to the former police investigator. “By bringing in experienced people who know the environment, they will be able, over time, to develop privileged contacts with sources of information. It will prevent the beatings and make the arrests before it happens, ”says Ryan.
Among the indicators analyzed by The duty, only attempted murders have seen an increase since 2017. The SPVM lists 131 attempts in 2020, compared to only 89 three years earlier.
This year’s homicide toll could also surpass the last one. As of October 22, 25 homicides had occurred in Montreal, while there were 27 for the whole of 2020.
Despite everything, it is still not possible to say whether there is an increase in crime in Montreal at the moment, indicates Rémi Boivin. ” Be careful. There have been a few very violent events in Montreal, but there are thousands of offenses that are recorded each year. Just because there are five more doesn’t mean it’s going to have an overall effect on people’s safety. […] Crime levels have never been lower than in recent years. “
The number of break-ins, the only indicator for property crimes, has also been declining since 1996. Over 33,000 incidents were reported in 1997, down from 6,000 in 2020. .
This type of crime is interesting to observe, since it feeds the feeling of insecurity of the population, believes Marc Ouimet. “On the one hand, it is frequent, on the other hand, it greatly affects the feeling of security [de la population] “.
Hot neighborhoods
The number of crimes varies even within the metropolis; some neighborhoods are therefore more dangerous than others.
The neighborhood station (PDQ) grouping the city center (Ville-Marie Est), Île Notre-Dame, Île Sainte-Hélène and Old Montreal is by far the most affected neighborhood in the metropolis, with a rate of 62.1 crimes per 1000 inhabitants. In comparison, the Montréal-Nord borough is in 4th place, with 18.9 crimes per 1,000 inhabitants.
This high crime rate is typical of downtown neighborhoods with few residents and a high “floating” population, the rate being calculated on the number of residents, can we read in the crime profile of this PDQ in 2019 .
“It is not only the resident population that is likely to commit or suffer a crime,” explains Rémi Boivin. In the city center and on the Plateau, there are more shops, bars, and therefore more people passing through. “
He also adds that this map illustrates the data for each district as a whole, which conceals “pockets of insecurity” in certain sectors. “It is not the whole of Montreal-North that is problematic, but it is probably certain sub-districts. We compare units that are not homogeneous. “