Febuary 6, 2023
THE VARSITY The University of Toronto’s Student Newspaper Since 1880
Vol. CXLIII, No. 17
Will increased police presence reduce TTC violence? Researchers say the solution lies in social supports
Khadija Alam News Editor
Content warning: This article discusses police violence and mentions anti-Black racism. On January 26, the Toronto Police Service (TPS) announced that it would deploy over 80 additional officers throughout the city’s public transit system in response to recent incidents of violence. The following day, the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) announced that it would deploy an additional 80 management staff to conduct health and safety audits. On January 27, a U of T student came forward as the victim of a violent incident on the 510 streetcar at Spadina and Sussex. Shortly afterward, on January 31, senior administration sent an email to the U of T community that contained tips for staying safe on public transit and offered a message of support. In interviews with The Varsity, U of T community members expressed concerns about
the City of Toronto and the university’s responses to violence on public transit. U of T scholars who research violence, crime, and the police emphasized that funding social services — rather than increasing police presence — is the key to addressing violence on the TTC. U of T community responds to violence The TPS justified the increased police presence on the TTC based on “a recent spike in violent crimes over the past few weeks.” In an interview with The Varsity, Julius Haag — an assistant professor at UTM’s Department of Sociology whose research includes examining issues of policing and police accountability — said that he hasn’t seen data from the TTC or elsewhere that suggest an increase in violent incidents on the TTC in the past few weeks. Jillian Sunderland — a sociology PhD student studying the intersections of violence, power, gender, and race — suggested that the perception of increased violence may be
a result of heightened reporting on violent incidents in traditional and social media. The Toronto Star found that the TTC reported 451 violent incidents in the first half of 2022; if this trend continued, the TTC would report 900 violent incidents by the end of the year. In an interview with The Varsity, Sunderland cited a recent Passage article that noted that, although reports of violent incidents on the TTC increased by 18 per cent since 2021, media coverage of TTC violence increased by 300 per cent during the same period. Sunderland stressed the importance of examining the social causes of violence. She highlighted that violent incidents tend to correlate with drastic cuts to social services such as the TTC. On January 9, the TTC revealed its 2023 operating budget, which proposes nine per cent less service than in pre-pandemic years and a 10-cent fare hike. U of T community members are involved in lobbying for more consistent and afford-
able public transit. On February 2, the TTCriders — a grassroots collective with a mission to make public transit accessible and equitable — held a day of action. Community organizers, Scarborough residents, and UTSC students gathered at Scarborough Centre Station to protest the cuts to transit that the budget proposes. At the event, Scarborough Campus Students’ Union Vice-President External Thai Dhillon Higashihara spoke about how TTC service cuts and fare hikes would impact students. In an interview with The Varsity, Higashihara said that increasing TTC service would help reduce violence by reducing the amount of time commuters spend waiting for trains or buses at night. According to a 2015 survey, 59 per cent of UTSC students use local transit to travel to campus. However, Higashihara feels that “Scarborough is often ignored in terms of TTC access.” Continued on page 2