a direct line can be drawn between povery and crime...that is a fact...canada has less poverty and less crime than the US, scandinavia has less poverty and less crime than we do...
the systemic solution to crime in winnipeg is not more police or stronger sentences...it is solving the social imbalance...plain and simple....i know i sound like a true liberal and all you cons think you solve every problem by hitting it with a hammer, but there is no evidence that stronger sentences reduce crime.
by this theory, you would think that the americans would have no crime at all ...they electrocute people like third world countries do for goodness sake...the americans have a crime rate 3-4 times higher than ours....their murder rates are 4 times higher, yet they have 8 times more people in jail than we do....they have more people in jail than any country on earth...clearly that solution does not work....not so coincidentally, the social divide between rich and poor is also the greatest in the united states.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration
when a 15 year old kid decides to join a gang, its because he has no other options....more police wont affect his decision....if you can remove that kid from poverty he wont join a gang....he sees that decision as a solution to his problem....as a society we need to allow him better avenues to turn.
as far as the aboriginal debate goes, i have no problem calling it for what it is....in canada we have a problem with aboriginal poverty...that can not be argued...i can reel off statistics as long as my arm proving it....it is a national problem that has to be solved.
winnipeg bears the brunt of this national failure because it is a place where aboriginal people settle when they urbanize.....we have poverty issues because we have a large population from our nation's most impoverished group.
it is not racism to say this....they do not commit crime because they are aboriginal...they commit crime because they are poor...an aboriginal kid who grew up in river heights and went to kelvin high school is no more likely to become a criminal than a similar white kid...just as a white kid growing up in poverty in the north end is just as likely to become a criminal as a similar aboriginal.....it just happens that a large porportion of aboriginal people are poor because of the cycle they have been entered into.
poverty breeds poverty...its a never ending cycle that started long ago and today we pay for it as a society...it is so easy to say it is cowardice to choose a gang, but you have not had to face the challenges that these kids face....they have no other options....your comments are pure arrogance and ignorance.
as a nation, we have to figure out how to solve the issue of aboriginal poverty not only on reserves but in our cities as well.
call me a socialist if you want but the solution to crime can only be the same as the solution to poverty....solve one and you have solved the other....we need to narrow the widening gap between rich and poor in our country and make sure that we are taking care of the weakest segment of our population....we seem to have forgotten this ideal over the last while.....you solve the crime issue by expanding and improving our social safety net as well as providing opportunities for those who come from a disadvantaged situation.
a good society isnt judged by its GDP....it is judged on how it treats its poorest citizens.
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When did that happen? And that Wolseley thing, so weird, looks like that family was targeted by those punks, also weird...
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