Reducing Violence is About Prevention

Even "super cops" know that homicides are preventable, but Canadian politicians still fail to act.

A plethora of government agencies provide living proof that “violence is preventable, not inevitable.” Public Safety Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada have selected best practices and made them publicly accessible. The U.S. Department of Justice and the World Health Organization have scoured the world to provide even more. But despite their success, these practices have yet to be shared and implemented from coast to coast. As a result, cities like Edmonton and Winnipeg still ended 2011 with record numbers of homicide victims. With more and more evidence showing it is possible to do so, it is time we stop the violence before too many more Canadians get hurt.

It is not just the science and its ease of access that is new. It is also the extent to which “super cops” agree with acting on prevention, albeit with an emphasis on balancing tough-on-criminal and tough-on-cause approaches. The Canadian Chiefs of Police, for example, argue that, “Unless we do both, quite frankly, we’re missing a piece.”

Los Angeles Chief of Police Bill Bratton stresses prevention, saying, “You cannot arrest your way out of [street violence].” Credited with reducing homicides in New York City in the 1990s through tough policing, Bratton knows what he is talking about.

Similarly, the chief of detectives for Glasgow, one of the U.K.’s most violent cities, got fed up investigating homicides. Looking for another option, he took knowledge from around the world and applied it locally, targeting gang violence. He brought in public-health experts and oversaw the installation of programs to limit alcohol abuse, stop youth from carrying weapons, promote mentoring, improve bad parenting, and more. Five years later, these efforts have reduced rates of violent offending by 50 per cent among those engaging with the initiative.

Can we adapt this success to Canada? Dale McFee, president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, thinks so. After taking his team to check out what Scotland was doing in terms of tackling crime, McFee used what he learned to inform policies back in Canada. Last September, he supported the Saskatchewan government’s announcement of a new framework that it is implementing (inspired in part by Glasgow), balancing enforcement and sustained social prevention.

Using a similar strategy, Rick Linden, now the chair of the Manitoba Police Commission, co-chaired a task force that reduced Winnipeg’s record numbers of car thefts to average Canadian levels. A partnership between police, social services, Manitoba Public Insurance, Manitoba Justice, and others orchestrated an 83-per-cent reduction in car thefts.

The success in Winnipeg shows what can be achieved by using proven strategies and the best practices promoted by the World Health Organization. But effective prevention requires real and sustained investments, not token charity and cookie sales. Manitoba had the courage to invest $50 million to prevent auto theft, and thus reaped millions of dollars in savings and saw fewer victims. Why not take a similar approach to preventing homicides?

This week, the Canadian Senate is taking up the omnibus crime bill with the knowledge that economists project an additional billion dollars of spending in the first two years for federal and provincial operations relating to just three of the nine sections in the bill. But this sort of financial bleeding is not new. Municipalities are already facing rapidly growing expenditures on policing and emergency services, and provinces are forced to build prisons to deal with a steady increase in prisoners.

More importantly, the cost of harm to victims of crime nationally has been rising, and is now estimated at $83 billion. Balancing any further increases with smart investments in effective prevention will slow the bleeding where it matters most – through the realization of fewer victims of violence.

As Canada’s new ombudsman for victims of crime noted in her first report, Canada’s justice system is disproportionately offender-centric. It’s time to “shift the conversation” to ensure victims are at the centre of justice policy in this country.

Photo courtesy of Reuters.