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Our streets are safe: The numbers tell the real story
JEFFREY SIMPSON
From Friday's Globe and Mail
E-mail Jeffrey Simpson | Read Bio | Latest Columns
Here are some facts. They come from Statistics Canada. You can check them on the agency's website, if you don't believe them.
Here they are. Violent crime dropped from 2001 to 2004. The homicide rate -- murders per thousand -- rose slightly (to 2.0 per 100,000 population in 2004 from 1.8 per 100,000 in 2000), but not so several other categories of crime. The attempted murder rate dropped during that period. Sexual assaults dropped. Other sexual offences dropped. Robbery rates dropped. Property crimes dropped, including break and entry and theft. (Motor vehicle thefts rose slightly.) Drug offences went up.
Read the numbers for yourselves, as citizens. They're easily available. They are apparently irrelevant, however, to newspaper and television line-up editors who sell their products in part through a heavy emphasis on crime reporting.
They are apparently also unknown to Canada's new Prime Minister. Or perhaps they are known to Stephen Harper and his Conservative government, but these politicians have deliberately decided to distort and misrepresent what is happening in Canada.
Take the Speech from the Throne. There, the government declared: "Unfortunately our safe streets and healthy communities are increasingly under threat of gun and drug violence." On Monday, Mr. Harper took his tough-on-crime message to the Canadian Professional Police Association. He warned that "safe streets and safe neighbourhoods. . . are threatened by rising levels of crime." He asserted that the "homicide rate is on the rise." The language of fear was omnipresent. "Times are changing," he said, threatening "our peaceful, law-abiding communities that are part of Canada's traditional identity and values." He continued: "In the last few months and years, we have witnessed growing media reports of drug, gun and gang violence, especially in the city of Toronto." Note the phrase, "media reports." The media, not just in Toronto, has feasted on crime as a way of boosting circulations and ratings. The old local television adage, "if it bleeds, it leads" has spilled into broadsheet newspapers.
Ace crime reporters have been hired. Crime stories are being pursued with special vigour. No wonder that citizens, when asked by pollsters, think that crime is rising. This is what their media are fixated on. The facts show the reverse.
Put another way, there are few areas of collective life where perception and reality are so at variance. And into that gap flow politicians with an agenda.
No wonder that citizens are misled when their own Prime Minister so wantonly misstates the facts.
When a murder occurred on Toronto's Yonge Street midway through the election campaign, all media hell broke loose. Politicians of every stripe jumped on the story, promising to get "tough on crime." Even Jack Layton of the NDP wore that ill-fitting political suit.
The Conservatives, of course, reminded everyone of their policies to impose mandatory sentences for gun-related offences and those related to drug-trafficking, paroled offenders and repeat offenders; the list served up again this week by Mr. Harper.
The promise, pollsters found, was wildly popular but of course not very useful in clamping down on serious, violent crime, the seeds of which lie elsewhere and the antidote to which is seldom a minimum sentence.
The promise was successfully directed to a political target (Toronto) that felt itself under siege, whereas the city is beset by particular problems related to gangs.
Gang violence is a serious challenge but it requires a pointed response rather than a blunderbuss approach. It must be dealt with through better and more omnipresent policing, but also policies that get at the social roots of gang violence. And that isn't easy, since those roots often lie in broken families, no male role models for young teenagers, widespread violence and disorder within the community itself, low levels of education.
There is a need for a more serious attack on crime, especially in those pockets of urban areas where it has grown. But escalated rhetoric about "safe streets" being threatened and "healthy communities increasingly under threat" represents political pandering that violates the facts.
jsimpson@globeandmail.com
------------------------------------------------------------
I would bet that the entire increase in murders came from Robert Pickton.
JEFFREY SIMPSON
From Friday's Globe and Mail
E-mail Jeffrey Simpson | Read Bio | Latest Columns
Here are some facts. They come from Statistics Canada. You can check them on the agency's website, if you don't believe them.
Here they are. Violent crime dropped from 2001 to 2004. The homicide rate -- murders per thousand -- rose slightly (to 2.0 per 100,000 population in 2004 from 1.8 per 100,000 in 2000), but not so several other categories of crime. The attempted murder rate dropped during that period. Sexual assaults dropped. Other sexual offences dropped. Robbery rates dropped. Property crimes dropped, including break and entry and theft. (Motor vehicle thefts rose slightly.) Drug offences went up.
Read the numbers for yourselves, as citizens. They're easily available. They are apparently irrelevant, however, to newspaper and television line-up editors who sell their products in part through a heavy emphasis on crime reporting.
They are apparently also unknown to Canada's new Prime Minister. Or perhaps they are known to Stephen Harper and his Conservative government, but these politicians have deliberately decided to distort and misrepresent what is happening in Canada.
Take the Speech from the Throne. There, the government declared: "Unfortunately our safe streets and healthy communities are increasingly under threat of gun and drug violence." On Monday, Mr. Harper took his tough-on-crime message to the Canadian Professional Police Association. He warned that "safe streets and safe neighbourhoods. . . are threatened by rising levels of crime." He asserted that the "homicide rate is on the rise." The language of fear was omnipresent. "Times are changing," he said, threatening "our peaceful, law-abiding communities that are part of Canada's traditional identity and values." He continued: "In the last few months and years, we have witnessed growing media reports of drug, gun and gang violence, especially in the city of Toronto." Note the phrase, "media reports." The media, not just in Toronto, has feasted on crime as a way of boosting circulations and ratings. The old local television adage, "if it bleeds, it leads" has spilled into broadsheet newspapers.
Ace crime reporters have been hired. Crime stories are being pursued with special vigour. No wonder that citizens, when asked by pollsters, think that crime is rising. This is what their media are fixated on. The facts show the reverse.
Put another way, there are few areas of collective life where perception and reality are so at variance. And into that gap flow politicians with an agenda.
No wonder that citizens are misled when their own Prime Minister so wantonly misstates the facts.
When a murder occurred on Toronto's Yonge Street midway through the election campaign, all media hell broke loose. Politicians of every stripe jumped on the story, promising to get "tough on crime." Even Jack Layton of the NDP wore that ill-fitting political suit.
The Conservatives, of course, reminded everyone of their policies to impose mandatory sentences for gun-related offences and those related to drug-trafficking, paroled offenders and repeat offenders; the list served up again this week by Mr. Harper.
The promise, pollsters found, was wildly popular but of course not very useful in clamping down on serious, violent crime, the seeds of which lie elsewhere and the antidote to which is seldom a minimum sentence.
The promise was successfully directed to a political target (Toronto) that felt itself under siege, whereas the city is beset by particular problems related to gangs.
Gang violence is a serious challenge but it requires a pointed response rather than a blunderbuss approach. It must be dealt with through better and more omnipresent policing, but also policies that get at the social roots of gang violence. And that isn't easy, since those roots often lie in broken families, no male role models for young teenagers, widespread violence and disorder within the community itself, low levels of education.
There is a need for a more serious attack on crime, especially in those pockets of urban areas where it has grown. But escalated rhetoric about "safe streets" being threatened and "healthy communities increasingly under threat" represents political pandering that violates the facts.
jsimpson@globeandmail.com
------------------------------------------------------------
I would bet that the entire increase in murders came from Robert Pickton.
