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Toronto police will never satisfy black community (pg. 3)
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| DigiNut |
| quote: | Originally posted by MarkT
essentially complete agreement between jayx1, diginut and myself.
this is proof that we CAN all get along, LOL. |
Haha, now that's when you know we're onto something!
Now if we can just get David Miller to stop embarrassing himself by spouting that it's all because their communities are underprivileged and that we should all give them more money to fix up their neighbourhoods.
Crime causes poverty - NOT the other way around.
(This is after he told us that it was because of the illegal flow of guns from the U.S. :rolleyes: which even if true would seem to be a problem with OUR border guards) |
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| psychosomatica |
| Yea.. I never understood the whole thing about shooting victims being 'good people'. Give me a break. Your son was probably a drug dealer or made some really bad choices. If you get shot, you more than likely had it coming.. people dont just shoot you for the fun of it you know.. |
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| spitty |
| quote: | Originally posted by EvilTree
Doesn't California have something like that? 3 strikes and you're in the slammer for long time? |
yes it does. and its an awful system. it puts lighting an empty building on fire on the same rung as murder and rape
a punk 18 kid could break into a house (inhabited but empty), steal a stereo, then later light an empty building on fire and give his 17 year old friend some meth and hes in jail for the rest of his life
while i agree that he needs to be punished, going to jail for life for those crimes is too extreme. this systems does not look at any aggravating or mitigating circumstances and prevents the judge from giving the best sentence to fit the crime AND the criminal
that being said, we do need harsher punishments
| quote: | Originally posted by diginut
Crime causes poverty - NOT the other way around. |
oddly enough i was agreeing with most of what you, jay and mark were saying..but that statement went waaaaaaaay too far. theres a lot of factors that contribute to poverty. crime and poverty has a circular relationship..and for the sake of avoiding arguing this all night, i'll be moderate and say that they equally influence eachother
in most cases use of negative and positive reinforcement works best. make those who break the law suffer, but give others a reason and the means to not get sucked into that lifestyle |
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| Jem_hadar |
| quote: | Originally posted by spitty
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i just wanted to say *breasthug* and post a :) for u spiffy _heart alwasy_
-jem- |
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| DigiNut |
| quote: | Originally posted by spitty
crime and poverty has a circular relationship..and for the sake of avoiding arguing this all night, i'll be moderate and say that they equally influence eachother |
The "central" position isn't necessarily the "moderate" one or the correct one.
If poverty is the cause of crime, then I find it very strange indeed that the poverty rates in New York City, Boston, and several parts of California dropped dramatically when those cities decided to get tough on crime. Very strange as well that with Boston in particular, in prewar times, the vast majority (over 90%) of prison inmates were white but the vast majority (again over 90%) of poor people were black. Lest you think I'm restricting my search to U.S. cities, consider Haiti and Jamaica; before Aristide was kidnapped, Haiti had a much lower crime rate than Jamaica, despite being an order of magnitude poorer.
Crime is certainly not the ONLY cause of poverty, I'll give you that. But history has proven to us time and time again that there is no forward causal link from poverty to crime. Crime is mostly caused by two factors:
1) Poorly or improperly enforced laws; and
2) Broken or dysfunctional families (single parent, child abuse, etc.)
If we look at the main crime centers in Toronto right now there are stunning incidences of each of these factors. Healthy families are virtually nonexistent and everybody gets away with a slap on the wrist. Giving these people money isn't going to help; education is already free, so there is no NEED for them to turn to crime even if they are poor. Most of these people are already receiving handouts in the form of welfare cheques, and if that isn't helping, fatter cheques won't make a bit of difference.
We can't really solve #2 (the sorry state of the family in Canada has numerous causes which I won't get into here because they are controversial enough to spawn off 10 more arguments), but we can and must do the best we can with #1 to deter the crime as much as possible. Your idea of "positive reinforcement" sounds nice but it's rather ridiculous to reward people for not committing crimes, and the perverse financial incentives that creates will make the poverty situation much worse. |
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| Jayx1 |
Great article in the Globe today:
| quote: |
Race is the elephant in the room
By MARGARET WENTE
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Last week, yet another young black man was gunned down in Toronto -- on the church steps, during the funeral of his best friend, who'd been gunned down the week before. Naturally, the police were blamed. "They should have been there," protested someone from the African-Canadian Alliance.
Pity the poor police. They're damned if they do, and damned if they don't. If they send more cops out to patrol dangerous neighbourhoods and question young men on the streets, they're accused of racial profiling. If they don't, they're accused of neglect. No one asked them to the funeral, even though the entire crowd seemed to know there would be lots of guns there. If they'd showed up without an invitation, they'd no doubt have been met with a wall of hostility.
"Enough," screamed the Toronto Star. Well, I second that. But enough of what? Our emoting is aimed at the wrong parties. Perhaps it should be directed at the people who can make a difference -- the ones who know damn well who the shooters are, but won't tell.
There's lots of heartfelt talk about all the "children" we are losing to "gun violence," as if it came out of the blue. But sometimes, the only difference between our poor, dead children and the cold-eyed thugs who kill them is which end of the gun they happen to be on.
The Star painted a touching picture of the latest victim, a handsome 18-year-old named Amon Beckles. A role model to the younger kids. Father of an 18-month-old daughter who called him "daddy." Uh, whoa. Is fathering a baby out of wedlock before you turn 18 a role-model kind of thing? Okay, so nobody's perfect. But Mr. Beckles was also under investigation by police. As well, he knew who'd shot his friend, but refused to co-operate. Too bad. He missed a chance to save his own life.
Meantime, the police have made themselves another fine mess. Last week, they rounded up 16 high-school students for allegedly sexually harassing or assaulting a 15-year-old girl. She's white. They're black. What were police thinking? Right on cue, the parents of the accused reacted about as you'd expect. "This is garbage," yelled one mother, who called the charges racist and "trumped up." Another mother said she'd warned her son "not to talk to those white girls, because they are bait." Everybody blamed police for picking up the kids in school, rather than at home. So insensitive. "We've had problems of racial profiling," said lawyer Royland Moriah. "You have to think about what the history is and take that into account when you make these decisions." He referred to the accused (some of whom are 17) as "children."
Toronto schools are also taking it in the neck for racial profiling. That's because young black males make up a disproportionate number of the students who are penalized for discipline and behaviour problems. Anyone with the slightest experience in Toronto's schools knows these problems are real. But saying so is not an option. Instead, the school board has promised the Ontario Human Rights Commission that the schools will be more sensitive. From now on, principals must consider "mitigating factors" before they impose discipline. One such factor is "racial harassment." Next fall, schools will begin to gather race-based discipline statistics in order to detect bias. Want to guess what's going to happen?
The human-rights commission has also ordered Toronto's schools to start gathering race statistics on their staff. That's because a black teacher from Nigeria complained that he had always wanted to be a principal, but after 20 years had never been promoted. In spite of this systemic racism, I've met several extremely able, black school administrators, one of whom is now superintendent of schools in Hamilton. This man wrote a book about motivating kids and turning around failing schools. It did not include the word "racism."
I used to feel quite smug about the lack of racial tensions in Canada. It was a mark of our superiority to the United States, I thought. We managed these things so much better up here. No underclass for us. No inner-city ghettos, gangs and guns, or blame games fed by ancient grievances and guilt. How wrong I was. How very wrong. |
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| Orko |
| quote: | Originally posted by DigiNut
If we look at the main crime centers in Toronto right now there are stunning incidences of each of these factors. Healthy families are virtually nonexistent and everybody gets away with a slap on the wrist. Giving these people money isn't going to help; education is already free, so there is no NEED for them to turn to crime even if they are poor. Most of these people are already receiving handouts in the form of welfare cheques, and if that isn't helping, fatter cheques won't make a bit of difference. |
This is the one thing I never understood. How is it that some areas have such a problem with kids staying in school, and crime, when education up to grade12 is free. I understand that school supplies cost money, but some lined paper, bic pens and plain binders really dont cost that much. Plus, computers are widely available at most schools now, if not all. |
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| DigiNut |
| quote: | Originally posted by Orko
This is the one thing I never understood. How is it that some areas have such a problem with kids staying in school, and crime, when education up to grade12 is free. I understand that school supplies cost money, but some lined paper, bic pens and plain binders really dont cost that much. Plus, computers are widely available at most schools now, if not all. |
It's mostly the family issue. These people don't want to go to school or be educated, and their parents (if they have parents) don't care enough to force them to go.
The public school system is also partially at fault, but that's a whole other discussion... |
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| Orko |
^^ actually I think I just found a partial answer.
When going to elementary school, half my school came from a affluent part of Mississauga, where as the other half came from low income housing. My friends are actually split right down the middle in the same way. Half are rich and half are poor. The rich half went to university or college, where as the poor half, the highest education is high school.
For most of the rich families the parents went to post secondary institutions, and were able to show and push their children towards doing well in school, and generally 'succeeding' in life.
The poor families, where usually headed by parents who did not have more than a high school education, and so the children were introduced and got comfortable with the idea of a job and money now, screw education. They stayed in that income group.
Now me in the middle. I was on the poor side, but my mom had a university education, and realised the value of it. She pushed me very hard towards doing well in school and showed me the importance of an education in supporting myself for the future. I had a few more friends who were poor but with educated parents(mostly immigrants), they also went on to university, and are now interviewing for promising careers. I know this negates my earlier point, but I guess what I am trying to say is:
If the kids are not shown what a good education can do for them, they will not strive for it, and just get caught in the rut. |
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| Orko |
| quote: | Originally posted by DigiNut
It's mostly the family issue. These people don't want to go to school or be educated, and their parents (if they have parents) don't care enough to force them to go.
The public school system is also partially at fault, but that's a whole other discussion... |
haha, you just took my 4 paragraphs and summed it up in 2 lines, good job! lol.
But I had an anecdote in there, so I win. :p |
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| EvilTree |
| quote: | Originally posted by Orko
haha, you just took my 4 paragraphs and summed it up in 2 lines, good job! lol.
But I had an anecdote in there, so I win. :p |
*raises Orko's hand for the victory* :D
There is something wrong with society when mentality switches from 'don't do crime because it's wrong' to 'don't get caught doing crime'.
Something is really wrong when the public is more concerned about law enforcement personnel committing abuses than what the criminals are doing. |
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| Jayx1 |
| with all the financial aid, grants and scholorships available, the only excuse for failure is laziness. |
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