The Great Rise... and Then the Great Fall: Toronto Police Service's Enforcement of the Ontario Safe Streets Act, 2000-2022

Bill O'Grady and Annie Simpson

Canadian Public Policy, 2024, vol. 50, issue 3, 277-291

Abstract: This article is based on an analysis of secondary statistics obtained from the Toronto Police Service (TPS) and the Office of the Ontario Attorney General related to the Ontario Safe Streets Act (OSSA). The act came into effect in 2000 and targeted aggressive panhandling; solicitation of a captive audience; and the unsafe disposal of used condoms, needles, and broken glass. Statistics show that OSSA tickets rose steadily in Toronto from 2000 to 2012 and then fell abruptly from 2013 to 2021. We challenge the notion that this drop in ticketing was due to the deterrent effect of this law, as the TPS and the Office of the Attorney General have proposed, because there are no data to support this assumption. To effectively explain this drop in tickets, the following five factors need to be considered: (1) changes in the number of TPS officers per 100,000 population from 2000 to 2021; (2) the disbandment of the Strategic Targeted Enforcement Measures Unit in 2012; (3) changes in tickets issued for all Highway Traffic Act violations in Ontario in the past 10 years; (4) changes in OSSA ticketing practices in Ontario more generally; and (5) the elimination of police street checks in Ontario. The article concludes by noting that the decline will be seen by critics as a positive development, even if it only reflects acceptance of the pointlessness of ticketing those with no means to pay, and by suggesting that now may be the time to go further and repeal the OSSA, given that it unfairly targets marginalized citizens, including people experiencing homelessness.

Keywords: broken windows policing; homelessness; Ontario Attorney General; Ontario Safe Streets Act; Toronto Police Service (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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