Maison Benoît Labre: crime rises in area
La Presse, which hasn’t been as hysterical about the Maison Benoît Labre in St‑Henri as some media, now reports that criminal acts are rising in the surrounding area: “Crimes against the person have almost doubled (+93%) within a radius of 250 meters around the centre.”
That’s pretty damning, as is the rest of the article.
jeather 10:02 on 2024-10-30 Permalink
“la hausse est calculée en comparant la période du 1er janvier au 14 avril avec celle du 15 avril au 28 juillet, soit après l’ouverture de la Maison Benoît Labre.”
That’s interesting but it feels like weather also plays a role; what was the difference between Jan 1 – April 14 2023 and 2024 vs April 15 and July 28 2023 and 2024? I also do suspect there is some “if I complain about things I otherwise wouldn’t have” going on that is increasing the rate, though probably not for the more serious crimes.
bob 10:19 on 2024-10-30 Permalink
Weather? Seriously?
Have you been to the area? I passed by just an hour ago. It isn’t the weather, it’s the junkies.
jeather 10:41 on 2024-10-30 Permalink
I’m sure there’s an increase; I believe there is a seasonal component as well, and I think it would be more informative to show both. Who knows, maybe I’m wrong — it’s easy to show, either way.
Yes, I’ve been to the area (the specific one where the shelter is). I haven’t noticed it any worse than before, but I don’t live in the very close surrounding area so it could have been timing or me being distracted. (I definitely haven’t noticed an issue where I live a slightly less than 10 minute walk away, which fits with the article anyhow.)
walkerp 10:56 on 2024-10-30 Permalink
Does it say who the victims are? I suspect most of these crimes are within the community of addicts.
bob 11:36 on 2024-10-30 Permalink
Every time I pass by there are ten or fifteen people milling about outside, including passed out in the doorway of what seems to be an emergency exit, lining the side wall of the McDonald’s on Notre Dame, filtering out into the streets nearby – the people running the place have no control over anything, don’t seem to want any, and the cops do nothing about it. Promises about how it would be discreet and quiet and that neighbourhood safety was a priority and so on have not been respected at all.
A notable statistic – “Les appels pour personne vulnérable ont subi la plus importante hausse dans le secteur du site de consommation supervisée Benoît Labre depuis son ouverture, soit 586 %, comparativement à 60 % pour le reste du PDQ 15. … personne dans le besoin (50 mètres : 2700 % ; 100 mètres : 264 % ; 250 mètres : 280 %) et surdose (250 mètres : 300 %)” *Safe* consumption site indeed.
Google Streetview still has imagery pre-dating the building, and the difference is obvious.
If there is any “complain about things I otherwise wouldn’t have” it is because there was so much less to complain about than before.
Ephraim 13:41 on 2024-10-30 Permalink
Don’t you love when they present statistics without the relevant statistical data? Is that increase statistically relevant? Do we have enough data to actually call it significant? What happens when you go to 500m from there? Is this crime by these people or TO these people or crime between these people that has just moved from it’s previous location. For example, is it significant if they have a fight between themselves because someone borrowed the other one’s property?
Also, the crime numbers will have been influenced by the fact that we are looking for crime statistics. For example, the number of rapes likely didn’t change during the “me too” movement, but the number of reported rapes did, because it’s an extremely underreported crime.
As I have mentioned before what the police have statistics on, is NOT crime, but REPORTED crime. And then we have convenience reporting numbers. For example, Child Find of America reports that 2300 children are missing each day in the USA. So why aren’t there 2300 Amber alerts in the US daily? According to the US government in 2023 there were… 155 Amber alerts for 196 children. You’re Wrong About had an entire podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQiXgYsxTiM about how wrong the numbers are and why.
Joey 13:49 on 2024-10-30 Permalink
A lot of the things being wondered about are, in fact, included in the article.
Ephraim 17:49 on 2024-10-30 Permalink
Didn’t see anything showing standard deviation, p-levels, correlation, regression.
Ephraim 18:58 on 2024-10-30 Permalink
And for example, they compared January 1 to April 14 with that from April 15 to July 28. Well, those aren’t comparable periods. For one thing, crime outside naturally decreases in the winter. American data shows more violent crime in summer and more property crime in winter. Not much to easily pickpocket in the winter. Also the fact that it’s there has increased reports… same as how so many more people hear the noise of airplanes as soon as they start talking about it on the news.We constantly talk about crime, especially because one the federal political parties likes to talk about it and yet basically crime per capita hasn’t really changed in a long time.
When you look at reported crime statistics, you start to wonder about certain things. Like why Nunavut and the NWT (and Yukon and Newfoundland and Labrador) seem to have a LOT of mischief while it’s a very small category in Quebec and Ontario. The largest category, other than the “Other” category is “Total Fraud” followed by “Breaking and Entering”. BTW “Total Fraud” is actually: general fraud, identity theft and identity fraud.
And if you want to see the effect of crime over seasons in Canada, you can look at https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2022001/article/00013-eng.htm and look for Chart 4. Interestingly enough, in Canada, property crime climbs in the summer, which makes me wonder even more… what are people stealing in the summer or is it that people are away and it’s easier to break into homes? But you can clearly see that February and March are definitely lower for crime stats.
Joey 14:21 on 2024-10-31 Permalink
A lot easier to make a getaway when there’s no snow and ice and the homeowners are on vacation. Anyway, yes they didn’t publish P values in the newspaper, but they did publish the basic descriptive date (e.g., number of incidents, not just percentage change) and they added qualitative data from local residents that make clear there’s no ‘correlation is not causation’ happening here. There may not be a better solution, and the growing problem of homelessness, mental health decline and addiction, might only be treated by this approach, which presumably improves the overall state of things while making certain peoples’ lives considerably worse.
jeather 14:33 on 2024-10-31 Permalink
No one is disagreeing with the “crimes have gone up a lot” descriptive data; we’re saying the numerical data is missing information.
Ephraim 16:28 on 2024-10-31 Permalink
Crime goes up always when people report it… because it’s reported crime. I’m not saying it hasn’t gone up, what I’m saying is that the data is spartan and basically not helpful. It’s like the Tories forever talking about increasing punishments for crimes as a solution. But we know that the correlation is NOT between crime and punishment, it’s between crime and apprehension. So, if there was a LOT of data, we could tell what kind of crime, even if we don’t know why and then increase apprehension.
But we need to realize that our justice system no longer has an immediate connection between apprehension and punishment. You get arrested on day x, you get release on bail/recognisance and then months later, you get to jail and then even further down the line you get the judgement and punished. People don’t naturally connect the crime and the punishment anymore. It’s like trying to train a dog, punish it 3 days later and it doesn’t understand why it is being punished. And reward it a few days later and it doesn’t understand why it’s being rewarded. When you just got a ticket to come to court a few month down the line, it feels like you got away with it. And the punishments don’t make sense. Going to jail for writing “I like cheese” all over Montreal doesn’t really make sense. Society pays to remove your tagging and society pays to keep you in jail. If the punishment was financial or work related, it might click more. Having to clean publicly all over town might make you realize how you made people feel when they walk by and make comments.
MarcG 16:34 on 2024-10-31 Permalink
Man I haven’t thought about that “I ♥ cheese” graffiti in years – did the artist really go to jail?
Orr 17:07 on 2024-11-01 Permalink
While the “Disappoint a few people” guy is still running around free.