Crime Prevention - Tackling Crime at its Roots

Consider this paradox: the solutions to so many of the problems that we face in our personal lives and that nations face on the domestic and international front lie in assessing and addressing the roots of those problems, but we, in our personal lives and governments in their public lives, too often address issues by reacting to the current consequences of those roots. And by doing this governments are not failures but rather partial successes. That's part of the problem of this paradox - reactive actions lead to the alleviation of some of the symptoms of the problem and in turn act to convince us that our actions were right - or in the case of governments, convince the electorate that their policies worked and did so better than any other parties' policies would have.

A particularly frustrating manifestation of this phenomenon is the attitude of the Canadian parties in Parliament towards criminal justice. These are some of the crime stats facing Canada, as provided by the National Working Group on Crime Prevention:

- almost half a million women in 2004 were sexually assaulted
in the same year, over half a million households were broken into or experienced an attempt at a break-in

- about 25% of Canadians were victims of crimes including theft, assault and vandalism

- 40% of those victims of crimes were victimized more than once

Now this how the government currently chooses to address this issue:

- more than $13 billion dollars is spent on police, correctional facilities and other criminal justice services

If our current government had its way, and it may still, the money spent on criminal justice (police and correctional facilities) will increase in order to combat crime. The problem with this approach is that it comes at the expense of addressing the root of the problem - why people commit crimes in the first place. The approach, by an extension of its own strategy, relies on crimes occurring; it necessitates victimization. This point has been made painfully clear by numerous non-profit groups, sociologists, political scientists, research institutions etc. This past week I had the honour of attending a presentation by Irwin Waller of the Institute of Prevention of Crime. Waller spoke of the tremendous correlation between certain social factors and variables with those individuals and groups most likely to commit crimes. Surely risk factors for crime don't come as a surprise to Canadians. The knowledge and statistics have been around for years. That criminal activity hinges on societal factors like socioeconomic equality, on community based factors like unemployment and the lack of services for victims of crimes, on relationships such as ineffective or inadequate parenting, and on individual factors like psychology and habits, should come as no great shock.

Indeed an empowering element in crime prevention is the immense statistical support about where and how specific criminal activities arise. Dozens of organizations and commissions, including the 1993 Standing Committee on Justice and the Solicitor General, the Canadian Public Health Association, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, have stressed the need to use the knowledge at our disposal on crime prevention to enhance social well-being. The Canadian Council on Social Development noted in 2006 that "when kids flourish, crime doesn't". The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police in 2002 wrote that "community safety and well-being are best achieved by addressing root causes of criminal behaviour."

Just as empowering as the knowledge correlating societal factors to criminal activity is the amount of information we have regarding positive approaches in the prevention of crime. Developing public health and educational programs have been shown to significantly decrease crime rates in communities. As too do productive public-private partnerships and increasing social cohesion and sense of community.

Waller, his logic fuelled by an intense passion, stressed his disappointment in the policies of the parties in Parliament, and rightfully so. None adequately approach the subject of criminal justice from a prevention angle. When I spoke with Waller briefly following his presentation he told me that he would love to supply the Green Party with materials and come talk to us. He seemed to recognize, as many others do already, that the Green Party can act as the vanguard, not only on environmental issues, but social justice issues as well. Vision Green notes that the Green Party is "committed to addressing underlying social causes of crime, such as poverty, racism and inequality as well as to putting forward a balanced approach to make manifest substantive equality in Canada while ensuring serious crimes are dealt with fairly by means of proportionate sanctions."

Canadians want safe communities, to live without fear of crime, security for our children, and judicial integrity. But to achieve these things we need to look at the root of criminal activity and work hard to devise and implement the programs that complement a national vision that includes the aforementioned desires and not one that will simply increase the number of police on our streets, cameras in our communities and people in our jails.