OTTAWA’S ONLINE HARASSMENT RATE IS DOUBLE TORONTO’S – BUT THAT MAY NOT TELL THE WHOLE STORY
The rate of people being charged for harassment using the internet or a phone in Ottawa is over double that of Toronto – but that doesn’t necessarily mean the problem is any worse than elsewhere in Canada, says the Ottawa Police Service.
According to analysis of statistics from Statistics Canada, nearly fifty people per 100,000 in Ottawa’s population were charged with indecent or harassing communications last year, a term which broadly describes using a form of telecommunication to harass, alarm or annoy another person. This is over twice the level seen in Toronto and in Ontario as a whole, both of which stand at around 22 charges per 100,000 population.
It is also substantially higher than the average rate of Canada as a whole, which is just over forty charges per 100,000 population.
However, the Ottawa Police Service claims that these statistics can be explained as a result of the crime classification system used by police in Canada.
Constable Marc Soucy said, “It all depends on how other police forces categorise their crimes.
“We use the model that’s issued by Statistics Canada and that could be why some police forces have some discrepancies when it comes to numbers.”
Police in Canada are required to enter data about all crimes into the Statistics Canada system, which prepares them for easy access by the public. The system only allows police to enter up to four offences per ‘event’. This means that not all of the offences involved in a case involving many separate crimes might be included in the report to Statistics Canada.
If the Ottawa Police Service tends to include indecent or harassing communications among those four offences more often than other police forces, then their statistics can be skewed. The statistics may suggest that they charge more people than other jurisdictions, even if those elsewhere are charged with the same crime, simply depending on which offences are sent to Statistics Canada.
Cyberbullying is one such case where many offences can apply to one incident. While cyberbullying as a concept is not itself a crime – the term is vague, and covers a wide range of behaviour that is not necessarily criminal – many offences, such as intimidation, counselling suicide and harassing communication, can be referred to as cyberbullying if they are committed with the use of technology. If a case of cyberbullying is brought to the police, only the most serious of these offences will be reported to Statistics Canada.
Soucy points out that despite the high rate, the Ottawa Police Service receive telephone or internet harassment cases fairly infrequently.
“I don’t think it’s an everyday thing, I do believe it happens but I doubt we get a file every day.”
This sentiment was echoed by Carleton University’s Department of Safety, which is responsible for listening to students who are being harassed.
Jeff Condie, a Community Liaison Officer for the Department of Safety, said “I think online harassment is moderate at Carleton, and is not something we deal with every day.”
He also noted, however, that there are likely to be many cases of harassment that do not reach them.
“I would say that a lot of cases would go unreported. This can be attributed to a number of factors, such as the victim not wanting to take the time to file a complaint, feeling embarrassed about what the harassment entails or simply not knowing that they are a victim.”
The advice from the Ottawa Police is, “if you fear for your safety, or if somebody’s done you wrong, and it’s maybe criminal, to report it to police.”
