Business leaders divided over release of downtown crime stats

In downtown Sault Ste. Marie, are the special, neighbourhood-specific crime-prevention initiatives recently introduced by city police having any effect?

Are we actually experiencing less crime downtown?

Have there been fewer calls for police service? Or more?

Local police have long argued that public perception of a lot of crime in some parts of the city doesn't necessarily correspond to the reality of their statistical reports.

On the other hand, they've been very slow over the years to tell us exactly what's in those reports, to disclose neighbourhood-specific crime statistics.

When businessman Frank Gaccione started pushing for hard numbers at this week's meeting of the Downtown Association board, police representatives did a lot of hemming and hawing, then finally admitted they weren't sure they could share that kind of information.

"Have we had any information on how activity is in the downtown core since COVID, or in the past year?" Gaccione asked Const. Emily Coccimiglio and Const. Alison Kirkpatrick, the community safety officers who regularly attend Downtown Association meetings.

"Ali, have you got it, or do you want me to answer?" Coccimiglio asked.

"Are you talking about crime statistics?" Kirkpatrick replied.

"Yeah. Any issues on the downtown core," Gaccione clarified. "How it's progressing. It's going up or down?"

Kirkpatrick: "I don't have numbers in front of me. I certainly would say – I mean during COVID, when we had the security downtown, it definitely helped. What you think, Em?"

Coccimiglio: "Alison and I, in our roles, we review the calls daily. I haven't seen anything noticeable, increase in the downtown area, but again, in regards to numbers, we don't have that in front of us."

Gaccione: "Are there any numbers that we can share with our merchants on Queen Street? How things are progressing, if it's getting better? You know. I'm wondering if we should do something on a monthly or biyearly, just to keep them up to date?"

Coccimiglio: "Yeah, we ran that by our supervisor, in regards to statistics. A little more difficult to provide. But in regards to, can we say thefts are up this month in the downtown area? Yea, or nay? Mischief. But he was going to get the approval from, obviously, senior management, in regards to what we can release."

Gaccione: "It's very exciting to have you guys at the table, and it's just a matter of producing something to our members that we can put on our website on a monthly, going forward. This is how it's progressing. You can see things improving or be aware. Anything that we can use to put into our website."

Kirkpatrick: "I mean, we can put that question forward again, but I mean, I don't know if our crime analyst can give us a definite specific data on just the downtown with the COVID. We've talked about it before and we'd have to bring it by the supervisors again to see if they'd be willing to look into that."

But not all Downtown Association directors were sure neighbourhood crime statistics should be made public, and some suggested the data might need to be spin-doctored to make it more palatable.

Lisa Vezeau-Allen

Ward 2 Coun. Lisa Vezeau-Allen, a member of the Downtown Association board and vice-chair of Sault Ste. Marie Police Services Board, said city police provide regular statistical reports on local crime, but those reports aren't neighbourhood-specific.

"I would caution against having that sort of thing on the web site, because that just creates fear-based action," Vezeau-Allen.

The councillor even suggested ordinary voters may lack the competence needed to comprehend crime statistics.

"Data is something that not everyone really understands, unless it's something that you take a deep dive into," she said.

"Data can be skewed.... You can always make things look better or you can make things look worse, depending on how you manipulate that data."

"I don't know what purpose data would have in terms of increasing safety in our downtown. I think it should just create fear, for potentially no reason," Vezeau-Allen said.

Kristi Cistaro

"We're talking about perception versus reality here, guys," said association chair Kristi Cistaro.

"I think there's an element of data that's necessary in order to dispel any negative perceptions that are, in fact. inaccurate," Cistaro said.

"I don't think this is something that's an unreasonable ask. I think there's high-level data that would be of value here."

Liz Filice

"What if the data comes in and it's bad?" asked another association director, Liz Filice.

"My look on this is property values," Filice said. "As board members we need to agree to either publish this monthly, or not."

"No," countered Cistaro. "We need this information for our knowledge and decision-making purposes. We are not the communications division of Sault Ste. Marie Police Force. I would assume they would not want us to take on that role for them."

"I just don't think we should keep our members in the dark because of something that we're not supposed to hear," said Gaccione. "Why are we trying to hide things that are happening in our downtown core? If it's happening, people have got to know."

Angela Romano

Board member Angela Romano suggested that if the Downtown Association decides to publish crime statistics, "maybe try to put a positive spin on it, and also offer some tips for businesses as far as, here are some of the things that you can do." 

Const. Coccimiglio said: "Ultimately it will be the deputy chief to make the decision on what it is that we can report back to the Downtown Association with."

Cistaro said she will arrange to have the issue on the agenda of the Downtown Association's April meeting.

Annual general meeting

The association will hold its annual general meeting tonight (Friday, March 19) at 5:30 p.m.

A discussion about weekend closures of Queen Street will take place from 7:15 to 7:30 p.m.

An informal question-and-answer period is scheduled for 7:35 to 7:50 p.m.

The virtual meeting is open to both members and the community at large.

To get instructions on how to attend, email [email protected] with AGM as the subject line.