For the last few days I have been asking people how they have been affected by street crime.
My goal is to figure out what is happening so as to set up a useful town hall on how to avoid being a victim.
In general, though, the responses to my inquiries have been "I haven't been affected". Where there is a yes the response has been "a car was broken into" (I had that twice personally myself).
I know people who have been assaulted (two very seriously) by strangers but that was many years ago; and no one has told me of assaults during my inquiries. (Domestic assault, while dreadful, falls outside of what I am looking into here).
One person pointed out that even a minor property crime scars society; people fear they will be victims of a similar crime -- that's a fair point.
But what I have heard suggests the bulk of street crimes are avoidable by taking fairly straightforward measures to secure motorcars -- don't leave valuables in sight on seats etc. I would be glad to hear about other problems -- and write to me directly rather than commenting if that is easier (jmorton@smhilaw.com).
6 comments:
While in a shopping mall in London (Ontario) someone threatened to kill me if I didn't give him all my money. Since there were a lot of people around, and I doubted he had a gun, I walked away.
While in a shopping mall in London (Ontario) someone threatened to kill me if I didn't give him all my money. Since there were a lot of people around, and I doubted he had a gun, I walked away.
I lived in Rio for bit. The prevalence of street crime is such that no one would ever use, for example, underground parking if business did not provide armed security. Business would grind to a halt in some places. So what Brazilian authorities did was to require business to take responsibility for their customer's safety. If you are robbed or your car broken into you can sue and an old girlfriend of mine did just that. She went to McDonald's with a friend. They took separate cars. As they were leaving they were confronted by two men carrying guns. One man took her car and the other her friend's car. They sued McDonald's and won. Their lawyer argued, among other things things, that the McDonald's parking lot was not properly lit.
Needless to say, such measures are not necessary here and the cost would be huge. However, in order to put street crime in Canada into some kind of context it might be useful to look at examples in other countries.
Two years ago:
I have only had my car broken into, loose change was taken. The door was unlocked. My neighbor had locked his car door, they smashed his window to get his loose change that same night.
We did not report it.
30 Years ago
I was picked pocketed at Damascus gate (Jerusalem) in a set up. Two Arabs scuffled in front of me, as I tried to get away another swiped my wallet with over 100 dollars....
Knapsack stolen from Munich youth hostel locker. Key picked from me while sleeping- Camera, and 6 months of travel film. Reported both only to receive a shrug from Israeli and West German Police.
Last week:
Spoke with a Richmond Hill, Persian man, at Canadian Tire, he got his tires slashed by two 20 something's who accused him of cutting them off while driving North on Bathurst in Thorhhill.
They knew where he lived because they followed him home.
I asked him if he reported it, he said "what is the point"
These are all helpful -- if depressing!
Ask Morton to look into how parolees have committed a crime when they were released on parole.
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