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Perceptions of neighbourhood safety after dark

Domain

Good governance

Subdomain

Safety and security

Indicator

Perceptions of neighbourhood safety after dark

Note: This indicator is a headline indicator. Headline indicators are intended to provide a high-level assessment of overall quality of life in Canada.


Definition

Proportion of the population by degree to which they feel safe from crime when walking alone in their area after dark.


Measurement

This indicator is measured in the General Social Survey (GSS) - Canadians' Safety (Victimization) and the Canadian Housing Survey (CHS). Survey respondents are asked:

How safe do you feel from crime walking alone in your area after dark? Do you feel….?

  • Very safe
  • Reasonably safe
  • Somewhat unsafe
  • Very unsafe
  • Do not walk alone

If you felt safer from crime, would you walk alone in your area after dark more often?

  • Yes
  • No

Data sources

This indicator is measured through multiple Statistics Canada surveys. Estimates can vary between data sources due to differences in reference periods, targeted or sampled populations, data collection and other methodology.


Data visualizations


Data analysis


Additional information

The following study includes data from the Survey on Individual Safety in the Postsecondary Student Population (SISPSP) on students' feelings of safety when walking alone on campus after dark: Students' experiences of discrimination based on gender, gender identity or sexual orientation at postsecondary schools in the Canadian provinces, 2019 (The Daily, September 15, 2020).

The Impacts of COVID-19 on Canadians: Data Collection Series collected information from crowdsourcing participants on perceptions of neighbourhood safety after dark during the pandemic in an iteration that ran in May 2020 entitled Impacts of COVID-19 on Canadians - Perceptions of Safety. Respondents were asked:

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, how safe do you feel from crime when walking alone in your neighbourhood after dark?

  • Very safe
  • Reasonably safe
  • Somewhat unsafe
  • Very unsafe
  • Do not walk alone after dark

Unlike other surveys conducted by Statistics Canada, crowdsourcing data are not collected under a design using probability-based sampling. Therefore, caution should be exercised when interpreting the findings, and no inferences about the overall Canadian population should be made based on these results.

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