Globe/Simpson: Violent Crime Actually Down

[Ed007Toronto]

Methods for preventing the emergence of gangs are a little beyond the scope and purpose of the police alone.

Emergence of gangs perhaps but they have means to take them down. The FBI has done much to reduce the power of the Mafia for example. The mass arrests a few years back of Hell's Angels in Ontario and Quebec is another closer to home example.

 

[blixa442]

As to the Post, there is a weekly "crime map" for the City of Toronto (and City of Toronto only), nuff said.

I like the crime map.

 

[bizorky]

The FBI has done much to reduce the power of the Mafia for example.

And the American Communist party, as well!

Humour aside (sort of), the point I was trying to make was that understanding the reasons as to why gangs form in the first place seems to be a highly under-rated activity. By the time the police are out busting up gangs, it means that there are victims of gang violence, fears in the community, entrenched attitudes, political grand-standing and big money spent on new prisons.

Yes, dealing with gangs after the fact can be done with success (although the mafia has been around for nearly a century, and still exists). But I guess what I am asking is why not invest some time and effort into understanding how and why gangs form in the first place, what attracts people to them, how are they organized, why do members do what they do, and pursue the research with a little creativity and open-mindedness that might actually illuminate why such social groups persist.

 

[canarob]

This might bump the murders-to-date number up a bit...

All eight victims from GTA
No comment on possible link to biker gangs
Apr. 9, 2006. 10:26 AM
FROM CANADIAN PRESS

SHEDDEN, Ont. - All eight men slain in Ontario's worst mass murder are from the Greater Toronto Area, Ontario Provincial Police investigators confirmed today.

The bodies were found in four vehicles in this rural community of about 800 residents near London early Saturday by a local resident.

 

[Darkstar416]

Numbers are taken from where the crime has occurred...which probably makes Shedden the most dangerous hamlet in Canada right now (statistically speaking).

 

[canarob]

Even if they were killed somewhere in the GTA and the bodies were only dumped in Shedden? Anyone know how that works? I guess they may never be able to determine where the actual killings took place...

 

[shmoopie nhi]

I agree that both Global and CTV have taken more of a "Fox News" approach to broadcasting in the last year or so. :\

 

[bizorky]

Hello everyone,

In tonight's news, crime is coming to your neighbourhood now and you're dead.

 

[borgos]

I think it was Mark Twain who said that there are three kinds of lies: lies, dirty lies and statistics. What the stats fail to capture is that the gun violence is increaslingly brazen. The shooting of a passenger on a TTC bus, the shooting at a children's birthday party at a housing project, the shooting of a child outside of his own home, the killing of an innocent shopper on Yonge Street at mid-day on one of the busiest shopping days of the year and the gunning down at a funeral. Statisticly, they are recorded as a mere five incidents. But what they tell me is that gun use has become more common place. Talk to any police officer or crown attorney. They'll tell you that gun possession is much worse than it was a generation ago.

 

[building babel]

Benjamin Disraeli:

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

 

[borgos]

You're right. Twain quoted Disraeli.

 

[building babel]

Misquoted him, obviously.

 

[afransen TO]

I take the opposite approach. People constantly disagree with statistics, and provide anecdotal evidence to the contrary. I'm sorry, but one is foolish if one believes anecdotes carry more weight than statistics...