(Nov. 28, 2007)
Onus is on us
By Leo Knight
In the same week as The Economist named Vancouver, BC, as the world’s most liveable city, the city’s new police chief, Jim Chu, said at a press conference that the property crime rate was too high and he needed 100 new police officers this year just to try and keep pace. In fact, the Vancouver Board of Trade said in a report, Crime in Vancouver (.pdf) “Greater Vancouver has the worst property crime rate among major metropolitan area in Canada.”
Considering that a “low” crime rate was one of the reasons The Economist made its claim, this would seem to be a dichotomy.
There is no question that Vancouver is a pretty city and it has a moderate climate for the most part devoid of the meteorological extremes many places suffer through on a regular basis. But, Vancouver has the dubious twin distinctions of being the property crime capital of North America and the Bank Robbery capital of Canada.
You have a much greater chance of getting your car broken into in downtown Vancouver than downtown Manhattan. Ditto Miami, San Diego and LA. Residential and commercial break-ins are so commonplace the Vancouver Police Department rarely attends to investigate any more. Victims simply call in the report or take advantage of life in the 21st century and file a report via the internet on the VPD’s website.
If one listens to government reporting agencies, the crime rate is going down. Those of us who inhabit the real world know different.
Vancouver Police say that a small percentage of people commit over 80% of all property crimes - the so-called habitual criminals. The reality is that Vancouver is not unique in that situation. It plays itself out all over Canada and the USA.
The justice system, such as it is, seems to think that unless crimes are “violent” the perpetrators are somehow less incorrigible than those “violent” offenders who seem to get sentenced to jail for subsequent offences for which they are convicted. Even in those States that have so-called Three Strikes laws, we still see that they have an habitual offender problem because their offences are not considered “serious or violent felonies.”
Methheads, crackheads, heroin junkies and speed freaks all have to feed their habits. And, unfortunately for the rest of us, they do it by breaking into our homes, cars and businesses with seeming impunity. Add to that those who fall into the so-called “dual diagnosis” tag – those with drug addiction and mental health issues – and property crimes aren’t going down anytime soon.
The police and the judiciary engage in the justice system’s version of fishing’s Catch & Release practices. The cops catch ‘em and the courts let ‘em go. And they do so with unfailing regularity.
So, without the justice system to watch our collective backs, what do we do? Well, in the first instance, we must report all crimes. Yes, I know it won’t result in an arrest or an actual investigation, but at least if all crimes were reported, the hand-wringers would have to stop saying that crime is dropping when we all know it isn’t.
Then, we all have to take steps to protect our homes and businesses. I have a hard time with the concept that we, the hard-working, honest, contributing members of society have to put ourselves behind bars while those who should be behind bars are causing the problem. But, nevertheless, that is the situation in which we find ourselves.
The essential lesson in this is that we must make our homes, businesses and vehicles a harder target than that of our neighbour. I know, that sucks for your neighbour, but self-preservation is really the world’s oldest profession.
Use a good quality lock on your home and business doors. Remember, thirty bucks spent on a lock buys you exactly thirty bucks worth of security. Look critically at your perimeter and harden it. Get an alarm, installed and monitored by a credible company with the ability to respond directly because, the reality is that police won’t in many jurisdictions. And remember, any security device installed “free” is a whole lot about marketing and not much about security.
It doesn’t matter whether we are talking about Vancouver, British Columbia or Kissimmee, Florida, the justice system that we grew up believing in has deserted us in favour of a legal industry. The onus of responsibility is therefore on us. The system doesn’t demand accountability of those who pass through its revolving doors. Our families deserve it of the rest of us.
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