Canada has always been recognized as being one of the safest countries in the world, boasting exceptionally low murder and violent crime rates, particularly in comparison to our American counterparts. However, a recent rise in gun violence on the streets of Canada's largest city has left many Canadians concerned about how safe our communities truly are.
On June 2, 2012, a shooting in one of Canada's busiest shopping centres claimed the life of two individuals and left five others wounded. Just over a month later, tragedy struck again when a lone gunman opened fire at a neighbourhood block party, claiming the lives of another two individuals and injuring 20 others.
This recent series of events has led politicians and community leaders to engage in a number of debates regarding how best to deal with the issue of gun violence on our streets and in our communities. These debates have left many Canadians wondering whether we should advance tough-on-crime agendas that are centred around discipline and denunciation or whether investing in preventative solutions which are centred around rehabilitation and reintegration, would be a more effective path to follow.
As a member of the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, I have recently studied Bill C-10: Safe Streets and Communities Act and I am quite familiar with tough-on-crime agendas that call for mandatory minimum sentencing and which adopt short term solutions to violence and crime in our communities. However, having worked with many vulnerable populations I firmly believe that our time and resources would be better spent in addressing the issue of youth violence by investing in long-term preventative solutions and programs.
Something that all of the recent instances of gun violence have had in common is that they involve young Canadians. It is very commonly believed that tough-on-crime solutions, which place young offenders in prison, force offenders to be held accountable for their actions. However, this belief relies on the assumption that young offenders understand the concept of accountability. Moreover, we must also remain mindful that prisons are often considered to be schools where individuals learn more about violence and crime. I am of the opinion that adopting tough-on-crime solutions which rely on placing young offenders in prison, will fail to keep our streets and communities safe, simply because these young people will learn more about crime while serving their sentences and will therefore be more likely to reoffend upon their release.
If we want to keep our streets and communities safer, we need to commit ourselves to getting to the very root of the problem. It is my belief that we should be investing our resources not in building big prisons but rather in rehabilitation and reintegration programs that will in turn help vulnerable populations such as our youth, the mentally ill, and minorities and keep them from reoffending in the future.
Let us all remember that takes a village to raise a child, it takes a community to keep that child safe, and it takes a country to protect all of its citizens.
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In that study, they found that 16% of offenders accounted for 58% of court appearances. They also found that the likelihood to be a repeat offender increased as the age of onset of criminal activity decreases with those initially convicted at age 12 having an average of 7.9 convictions. Even chronic youth offenders were unlikely to offend after their 18th birthday - when they suddenly become subject to the full weight of the law.
In short, it seems the smart thing to do with chronic youth offenders is incarcerate them until adulthood. Basically a system where the repeat convictions for youth crime get you detention in a secure facility for the rest of your childhood.
The perfect solution? Probably not. But that would resolve the immediate threat while we spend a few hundred years trying to solve a problem with disenfranchised youth that has persisted since the beginning of time, hmm? In short, the young offender provisions of Bill C-10 would appear, on their face, to be a rational approach, while your idea - fixing the world - while considerably more altruistic in disposition, is likely to take much, much longer to implement.
There are many studies to back up what you are advocating here. One has to wonder what our governments motivations may be when science has determined that our current system is cyclical and self perpetuating in nature.
Gun violence will not be stopped by more gun control, the root of this type violence is what is in need of attention.
We should be teaching the snake to eat it's own tail, not how to breed.
I'm sure we could all benefit from a solutions-driven article of yours that explains how your proposals are credibly informed by your own direct and intimate contact and experience living and/or socializing in and around the Toronto communities affected by gun violence.
Surely, we could gain tremendous insight from you, a young Black man who has become a lawyer after gaining extensive lived experience with individuals from these troubled Toronto communities. Maybe you could use your intimate experience to speak in more detail about the psychology of individuals living in these TO communities that exist on the socio-economic margins and within a structure of racialized poverty. Making specific reference to the troubled TO communities where you've spent time living, socializing and/or working would also do much to help us all understand how you gained the insight that empowers you to write so authoritatively on these issues. It would also encourage more buy-in to your proposed solutions.
Finally, based on your experience in and with Toronto communities facing gun violence, can you describe organizations currently at work on the ground which are doing things that are having a sustainably positive impact on priority neighborhoods?
Please share your insights because we absolutely need credible individuals speaking on this public issue, not just fly-by-night popcorn pundits who've never really spent meaningful time living in and with individuals and families in and from Toronto's priority neighborhoods.
My Ex, who I still loved dearly, was strangled to death by a Man/Boy that is well known to the system. He is not responsible enough to take his own meds and my darling is dead now.
I expect little from the Justice System when he finally goes to trial and sadly doubt this will be his last murder.
According to this same woman, Canada's licensed gun owners, trained, checked, vetted, and without criminal record and with a murder rate roughly one half that of the population at large, are not to be trusted, are to be harassed with useless paperwork, prevented from trading firearms without vetting each single transaction with a bureaucracy manned by gun-haters and idiots, and are to be held culpable for any tiny mistake in the process.
in other words, they should be treated like criminals.
But young gang-bangers, dealers of cocaine, gun-runners, rapists, murderers, violent criminals need TLC.
TLC.
It is beyond belief.
I have to go now, before I start calling her all the obvious names......
Ok, I hear this all the time from the liberals while the right speaks about tough on crime. What I do not hear is how the left will treat this problem? Throw more money into resource centers and basketball courts?
Lets hear the solutions Senator instead of your usual pious chirping from the Red Chamber.
http://www.arjaa.org/
Where law enforcement comes in is to protect our youth from the criminals and the gangs that get kids hooked early on both drugs and dealing. Kids can make hundreds if not thousands of dollars dealing for the gangs and that lifestyle is hard to counter with feel good community programs.
The suppliers, the head of gangs, all these elements should be crushed, ruthlessly.
About prisons, "where individuals learn more about violence and crime", are you implying that these "criminals" spent time in prison before they went on their shooting spree? That they learnt what they were doing from a prison? FYI, you don't need to teach a child how to be evil or have you not noticed that as parents we spend more time trying to discipline a child?
As for Hal Wood comments, are you implying that "refugees" are the cause of the rise in crimes? That Canada will be without criminals if we have no "refugees"? Are criminals in Canada solely from the "refugee" program? The real problem are the law-makers and our kangaroo courts. It's these people who have been elected into office by the people to keep law and order in Canada that do not take crime seriously and mete out the punishment that's required, not the "refugees". Remove all the "refugees" from Canada and I assure you that murders, kidnappings, rapes will still continue. And who are you going to blame then?
By the way, we're talking about criminals. Go tell a parent of the victim that they should show "TLC" to the criminal that just murdered or raped their child. I sure hope it doesn;t happen to you.