Toronto police have arrested a suspect in connection with a fifth case of voyeurism reported at the University of Toronto last week.
“In the past eight months, multiple acts of voyeurism have been perpetrated on members of our New College community in both publicly accessible washrooms and residence space that is only accessible to keyholders,” New College’s Interim Principal Dickson Eyoh said on their website.
One of the victims was 14 years old, according to the University of Toronto’s student newspaper The Varsity.
In early January, Toronto police arrested a man they believed to have been behind the five recorded incidents of secretly recording different women in washrooms on campus in 2023, The Varsity reports.
Then, an incident where someone held an iPhone over an occupied shower stall in a Wilson Hall Residence washroom occurred on February 15, according to Eyoh.
It’s at least the third act of voyeurism to take place since the start of the new year.
Toronto police arrested 19-year-old suspect Shunnosuke Koshikawa who was charged with voyeurism and mischief on Mar. 16, according to a press release.
Koshikawa appeared in Toronto Regional Bail Court on Mar. 16.
Students and Torontonians have been discussing how voyeurism at U of T affects the broader community on social media.
“I’d be interested in seeing numbers on if voyeurism on campus is significantly higher than off-campus, in some other comparatively dense city (or otherwise adjusted for population density) Since if it’s an universal problem then ngl I don’t think it is that mandatory for the school to warn us when the news doesn’t warn the public. There’s probably wackos doing illegal stuff all over the place, and maybe that should be a public PSA to EVERYONE but I’d doubt UofT could do anything specifically to fix a widespread problem and truly make people feel safe,” one user commented on Reddit.
“I’d also love to see data about how U of T compares to the rest of Toronto/other schools. Toronto Police are pretty public about reporting arrests, so it wouldn’t be impossible to compile and count that info,” another person said.
Others are concerned about how effective security measures can be on catching suspects of voyeurism.
“I’ve volunteered for their alumni bookstore many years (this was quite some time ago) and you still have voyeurism issues prop up. Problem is it’s extremely hard to catch these people because as you may have guessed: you can’t put cameras in the washroom and facilities to track this,” a user mentioned.
In response to student safety and privacy concerns, Eyoh released a statement detailing all shower stalls would be retrofitted for better privacy, additional security patrol on residence floors, and alert emails were sent to all New College residents.
