Articles On Crime

Crime Articles From Canadian Sources

Police don't get respect

"I have concern for children and young adults. Many were taught police officers are someone they can turn to if they need help. If the reservoir of respect for law enforcement continues to drop, we could end up with a swamp full of alligators, crocodiles, gang members and other predators.

Then whom will citizens turn to for help?"

Dan Lemieux; North Shore News 2008

 

Networking sites key to stopping crime: police

Toronto Police Const. Scott Mills said social networking sites are the key to preventing crimes and keeping kids safe because teens don't sanitize their online chatter.

"I could prevent violence more so from my desk than I could driving around to schools," said Mills, who runs the Toronto Crime Stoppers school program. "Just by being out there, engaging with kids online, you build relationships.""We can learn a lot about what our kids are doing by being involved in their online life," said Mills. "Sometimes there are little warning signs that we might be able to find that might allow us, as mom or dad or the safe schools officer or anybody, to be able to sit and talk to our kids and maybe that conversation might prevent something from happening."
      CanWest News Service January 04, 2008

Effort To Combat Crime

Re: Pawn Shops. Many Police Agencies are seeking a uniform set of rules, through Provincial Legislation, to govern these businesses, including the mandatory use of a standardized automated reporting system for recording pawn and second hand goods transactions.

Across North America, the average percentage of known stolen second hand goods seized by police agencies from pawnshops and second hand stores is approximately 1% of the value of the total amount of goods brought into these stores.
      Association of Chiefs of Police

We can’t let thieves steal our city’s reputation

Crime rates here, in all categories from petty to serious, are among the worst in the country. But this is a national problem as well. According to Statistics Canada’s 2004 Criminal Victimization Survey, 28 per cent of Canadians age 15 years and over reported they were victims of crime in the preceding year. Forty per cent were victims two or more times, 20 per cent were victims three or more times. And these weren’t just petty crimes. Thirty per cent were violent crimes, where 650,000 Canadians were physically injured — and this does not count the psychological trauma to victims and their families. In Vancouver alone, the police department currently has 20,000 arrest warrants outstanding.

The Vancouver Board of Trade supports a balanced approach to dealing with crime and public disorder, including more and better treatment for drug addicts; more and better rehabilitation facilities; more and better mental health facilities; education and literacy programs; early childhood development; and improved accountability of the courts.

While these measures are important, even more is needed, including new sentencing, parole and early release guidelines that give better protection to the public, especially for repeat and violent offenders; more police; vigorous prosecution; better measures to deal with organized crime and gangs; and less tolerance for drug traffickers.
      The Vancouver Board of Trade

Misleading crime statistics

Recently Statistics Canada has once again issued a misleading set of statistics concerning crime in Canada. The agency insists on using crimes reported to police to calculate what it refers to as crime rates. Yet other surveys carried out by Statistics Canada show that only about one-third of crimes are reported to police, and that proportion may be declining.

Statistics Canada’s misleading approach to the reporting of crime in Canada must be stopped. Crime is a serious subject, with more than eight million criminal offences in Canada in 2004, directly affecting one person in four. In 2004, the last year for which reliable information is available, there were more than 2.7 million violent crimes in Canada, which inflicted over 650,000 physical injuries.
      Vancouver Board of Trade letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

--crime really does pay

Much of it, too, has to do with poor parenting by adults too busy coping with their own lives to concern themselves unduly with those of their children.

Also, there appears to be a general feeling among some young people that crime really does pay — and that, even if they do get caught breaking the law, the worst that can happen to them is house arrest or the briefest possible of jail sentences.
      Editorial: The Province, July 17, 2007

Perspectives on Organized Crime in Canada

The police, politicians, and media (and hence the public) tend to see the term organized crime and alternatively transnational crime, as an undifferentiated blanket under which most ‘serious’ crimes can be shoved. The concept of organized crime has become mythologized to the point of total distortion, rendering it useless for anything but political mileage and the bargaining for resources by law enforcement. Leading some critics to suspect that those results might have been the objective.

I am suggesting however that the ‘policing tasks’ that are required in order to focus on these groups may be closer to traditional police work than what must be directed against some other forms of transnational crimes. If our focus is dominated by the ‘organized crime/ transnational’ aspect, we may be ignoring not only the local aspect but also what might be seen to be the lower level crimes that are part of the transnational crime processes. Empirical research reveals a complex mix of criminals that range from the sophisticated ‘specialists’ to the ‘opportunists’—all operating within the same crime field.
      Margaret E. Beare; Nathanson Centre for the Study of Organized Crime and Corruption

Ontario Communities to get almost $8 M to prevent crime

"A young person suspended from school for the first time is a person at risk. Is that going to result in them feeling more isolated and drawn into areas where they feel accepted? Many young people who get involved in gangs are simply looking to be accepted."

Police chiefs across the province have long called for help to deal with the "root causes" of crime like drug addiction, alcohol abuse and mental health issues, said Hamilton police Chief Brian Mullan.

"We often are reacting to the symptom of a problem," he said. "When we look to solve the problem, it doesn't only take the justice system - it takes looking at the root causes."
      Chinta Puxley, The Canadian Press

Every child deserves - -

Every child deserves a safe, loving and permanent family. Children in foster care spend months and often years in placements that are designed to offer temporary care. The average length of time a child spends in foster care is fourteen months. Too often, they then return to homes that are not much safer than when they left. The damage that this can do is immeasurable.

We have to find a way to hold the system that is responsible for these children accountable. New laws are needed to deal specifically with the rights of children and we need a stronger watchdog organization to make sure these laws are upheld in individual state agencies. We each have the power to become a voice for a child that doesn't have one.
      © Dena Standley; The Child Welfare System

appropriate curfews and guidelines

Why is it that so many parents take the time to research the cars they will buy for the safety rating, put locks on their cabinet doors to keep the children from consuming household cleaners and put fencing up around their new pool…but they lack the common sense to set age appropriate curfews and guidelines?

All children have the potential for mischief and after a certain time of night, those who cause the mischief seem to be out in force. Why then would you let your children wander aimlessly through the night? In the space of a week, our city saw a child’s homicide by a stray bullet and a child hit by a car near midnight – both preventable.
      © Connie Newbauer; Hidden Dangers of Childhood

The High Cost of Crime

Crime is here to stay because so many jobs depend on it. From academic ivory towers to gritty mean streets, the criminal justice system is a growth industry.

-- the system is a bureaucracy; for that matter, many intertwined bureaucracies. Bureacracies do two things, for sure: they self-perpetuate and they grow. In this case, crime and criminals are the feed stock.
      © Art Montague; suite101.com, Jun 21, 2006

CN ON: LTE: Court Ruling Is Puzzling

I question his judgment when he can justify a decision to impose a conditional sentence on a drug dealer found with $28,000 worth of crystal methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana, while earning $80,000 a year. This, as well as to state publicly: "If I had your background, I wouldn't be sitting here. I'd probably be doing something along the lines of what you did."

      Court Ruling Is Puzzling

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