From StatsCan today : The numbers, rates and severity of crimes reported to police dropped again last year, continuing a 10-year trend. StatsCan Tables here.
Aha! say the Harperclones, that's because people aren't reporting the crimes. Yeah. Sure.
The crime rate, a measure of the volume of crime reported to police, fell 3% in 2009 and was 17% lower than a decade ago.
The Crime Severity Index (CSI), a measure of the seriousness of police-reported crime, declined 4% in 2009 and stood 22% lower than in 1999.Violent crimes, which range in seriousness from harassing phone calls to homicide, accounted for about 1 in 5 crimes in 2009. Police-reported violent crime in Canada is also declining, but to a lesser extent than overall crime.
Police identified about 165,000 youth aged 12 to 17 accused of a criminal offence in 2009. Both the number of crimes and the seriousness of crimes committed by youth have generally been declining since 2001, including a slight drop in 2009.
"Unfortunately, our safe streets and healthy communities are increasingly under threat of gun, gang and drug violence."
an exact quote lifted in its entirety from Harper's April 2006 Speech From the Throne
... and repeated yet again on the website of Con Ed Fast, Chair of the Justice Committee no less.
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StatsCan better be careful ...
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7 comments:
It's the Jedi Knights!!!!
While the Jedi's help in deterring crime is much appreciated, we need them to refocus their efforts towards fighting the evil empire and the Lord Sith Darth Harper
Obviously it is just the fear or the Wrath of Harper that keeps the unwashed masses from doing crime out there.
Now if he actually passes the 'tough on crime' law the taverns will empty and the churches fill.
Be patient. That new prison system of Harper's, "universities of crime" on the American model, will have the crime rate back up very quickly when they get into operation.
Conservatives need fear. Therefore they need criminals. And if there aren't enough criminals, they'll bloody well manufacture some.
dBOs and Kev : LOL!
Croghan and Anon : I crossposted this at Dawgs and included this bit of advice from the Corrections Canada website, unfortunately long since expunged in one of those gc.ca website purges :
"American politicians have often found it in their self-interest to use fear of crime as a strategy to win elections, by promising to wage war on crime.
It is ironic that in the United States, as in Canada, crime rates have been declining since 1991. However, by waging war on crime they have managed to double their prison population without making the United States a noticeably safer society than Canada.
We would do much to advance the public interest if we can better manage the fear of crime than our American neighbours."
Additionally the American group Stop Prisoner Rape's submission to parliament showed that one of the reasons Canadian prisons are safer and more conducive to rehabilitation than the American prison system is primarily the smaller prison population. More here.
The Conservatives seem dedicated to repeating every disasterous mistake the American right have imposed on their country over the last several decades no matter how much evidence against them there is.
Note the alliteration :)
Another failure for fear is in Arizona. At one time the Republicans used the terror tactic of saying that the illegal aliens coming across the border will (do) raise the crime rate. They are just less respectful of the rule of law than native Americans.
OOPs - turns on the those communities and areas with the most aliens are those with the smallest crime stats. (Except when the Border people decided to arrest some for being ...illegal aliens).
The politics of fear can be overcome by the politics of truth.
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