by M. A. Hamad
The streets of Toronto are safer than they have been in a while as, according to the Toronto Star, crime rates have gone down over the past quarter century. (Photo credit: http://www.marwa-hamad.com/)
According to Jim Rankin, a reporter and photographer who helped put together a multimedia section about crime in Canada for the Toronto Star’s website, crime has gone down over the last several years in Toronto, but the media and politicians instill a fear for safety in Canadians nonetheless. Though there are 13 high risk areas in Toronto, Rankin says, “It has nothing to do with crime.”
The government spends $13 billion dollars a year on keeping criminals behind bars, a number that is about to go up with the passing of stricter laws which aim to get more people off the streets and for longer periods of time.
A more beneficial approach, according to the Star, than spending literally billions of dollars on jailing criminals, who have sometimes already seen the inside of a jail cell, is to spend the money on programs that will break the cycle of crime even before it begins.
Expulsion schools, where expelled students get the special attention needed to resolve their issues, help troubled students but only after damage is done. “They do get the help they need,” says Rankin. “But it’s at the end of the game.”
The Star online tries to bring special attention to the issue through a section titled Crime and Punishment that has everything from video interviews with criminals in the GTA, interactive games where the player guesses the sentence of a crime, and photographic timelines of Canada’s prisons and criminal justice.
“The challenge is making sure people see it,” says Rankin.
Summary: Though crime rates have been decreasing, Canada plans to spend more than $13 billion a year on keeping criminals behind bars while the money could be spent on preventing crime in the first place.
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