POLICE RELEASE RESULTS OF ONLINE CRIME SURVEY

More Than 76 Per Cent Of Respondents Identify Drugs As The Most
Serious Problem In City

More than half of Kingston residents who answered a city police survey
say they've been victims of some sort of crime.

While 52.3 per cent of respondents said they had been crime victims,
deputy police chief Bob Napier emphasized this doesn't mean the same
percentage of Kingston residents has been targeted.

"You have to appreciate the results only represent those who were
actually surveyed," Napier told members of the Kingston Police
Services Board this week. The survey results were released at the
board's monthly meeting.

A survey is held every three years to get public input while
developing the force's three-year business plans.

This was the first time police put the survey online. A total of 613
people responded between March 15 and May 16.

Last time, police surveyed people in a west-end shopping centre, which
could suggest many respondents came from a certain set of
demographics. Doing the survey on-line also would have narrowed the
response.

"This survey was done on the web, so there's some anonymity here that
perhaps those who have been involved with the police in a negative way
were more likely to respond in a negative way," Napier said.

Police Chief Bill Closs said the fact that 52.3 respondents reported
themselves as crime victims is, in a sense, a good thing.

"[It] makes the information that we found in the survey to be more
credible and carry more weight," Closs said. He explained that it
suggests many of the respondents had previous contact with police.

Indeed, the survey revealed 6.8 per cent of respondents were arrested
in 2007 or suspected of a crime.

Other highlights of the survey were:

Drugs were identified as the most serious problem in Kingston. More
than 76 per cent of respondents said it was their greatest concern,
followed by break and enters, drinking and driving and youth violence.
The issues of least concern were shoplifting and thefts from
automobiles.

More than 83 per cent of people reported being very satisfied or
somewhat satisfied overall with the work of Kingston Police. Almost 17
per cent said they were not very satisfied or not at all satisfied.

Almost 49 per cent said they were satisfied or very satisfied with
police response time. Almost 22 per cent said they were dissatisfied
or very dissatisfied with police response time.

Almost 77 per cent said Kingston Police could best improve the
problems faced in their community by providing higher visibility,
followed by hiring more officers and cracking down on criminals. The
least effective measure was seen as acting fairer or being less biased.

Almost 18 per cent said they had experienced a crime in the past year
that they didn't report.

Closs called this last response "disappointing." Police would like to
think that citizens would call them at any time of day or night as a
first resort or a last resort, he said.

"It bothers me that people aren't calling us for whatever their
reasons might be and we really need to find out what that is," he
said. "We have to figure out why people are not reporting these
things, why they are afraid to call the police and ... deal with it in
the business plan."

Queen's University Stewart Fyfe, a political studies professor, said
the survey could be a useful tool for Kingston Police but may not be
an accurate indicator of the feelings of the general population
because a number of factors can skew its results.

"It gives you some kind of feeling of what is going on and how people
are feeling about [police], but it's just another piece of evidence,"
Fyfe said. "You get evidence when you're walking down the street on
what you think of police."

Fyfe said people's answers can be affected by who designed the
questions. The way someone answers a question can be affected by how
the question is asked.

To help ensure answers are valid, professional survey writers are
often used. They often create cross-check questions that ask a number
of similar questions in different ways or along the same theme, for
example.

The results of a survey can also be affected if the survey wasn't a
random sampling, but done by invitation online, as was the case with
this Kingston Police survey.

"If you have been a victim of crime you are more likely to reply than
if you have never met a policeman in your life," Fyfe said.

The online nature of the survey might also have affected its results
because not everyone has Internet access, he said.

That said, the survey is considered 95 per cent accurate to within
plus or minus 3.95 per cent.