One only has to become a victim of crime to become a supporter of Steve's tough on crime agenda. I have joined that group.
Recently I had my car stolen from in front of my residence. The thieves drove the vehicle into Riversdale and from then it became a community car for the use and enjoyment of all little thugs. It was an older model vehicle in pristine condition - one of those "driven by a little old lady to church on Sunday" deals. Needless to say they smashed the vehicle beyond repair, and due to the age of the car, SGI will not be giving sufficient funds to replace the loss.
And the loss of $300.00 to $400.00 in contents in the vehicle is not covered by auto insurance. This must be claimed through your house insurance. However if you try and claim it you lose your claims free status, pay a deductible and subsequent surcharges. It would actually cost me more to claim this loss than I would recover under the policy. I love insurance companies.
Since the thieves are young offenders I can't even access information on them. They will go through youth court, get a tsk tsk and be let loose to continue with their activities.
On the other hand I am without the vehicle, must go into debt to replace it and the contents. Justice is truly blind.
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The Young Offenders Act is an absolute joke. It was written by upper middle class people with punishing their kids in mind. The result has been applying soft upper middle class punishment to street thugs.
ReplyDeleteFor anyone interested take a gander in youth court. You see the kids that have made a mistake in there sweating bullets and hoping to god that their futures will not be compromised for stealing a tshirt from the mall. You also see the thugs in there laughing and swearing at the judge knowing full well they have a free pass until they are adults.
I can sympathize with your heartache over your car Mistress, I've also been a victim of a stolen car. SGI is only concerned with maximizing their profits with the least amount of work.
I had my window smashed last year. Not owing a package policy I was told my deductible would be more than to replace the window that was broken.
ReplyDeleteAs for the contents of the car, same deal, had to go through my house insurance company who told me that the deductible would be equal to my loses and the premium would go up.
So in the end, I was basically uninsured on the window and contents because I would have had to pay double premiums.
Oh and best of all, the cops didn't even bother to investigate. I was asked to come down to the station to file the report and when I asked if they were going to fingerprint my car the officer at the station blankly stared at me and asked, "Why?"
I also applaud Harper for his tough on crime stance. Enough is enough.
Toss out the YOA.
ReplyDeleteUmm the Young Offenders Act doesn't exist anymore, and hasn't for some time. Like a decade maybe?
ReplyDeleteStrange, we used to have the Deliquent Minors Act, which nobody was happy with. So we created the YOA, which nobody was happy with, so then we created the Youth Criminal Justice Act, which nobody is happy with. And at the core, they were not a whole lot different from each other.
The phrase "chasing our tails" comes to mind.
On the other hand, youth property crime rate has been declining since the YCJA was introduced. It was fairly flat prior to that.
Plus, since we already incarcerate young people at a higher rate than the US, aren't we already "tough on crime"?
And Sask already incarcerates youth at a rate nearly 2.5 times higher than the Canadian average, so if "tough on crime" works so well, shouldn't there be less youth crime here than every other province?
I love how Steve will not solve the real issue of crime nor would Steve stand up to the insurance companies which rip you off.
ReplyDeletenot to mention the billions being thrown into the "tough on crime" black-hole despite all the evidence (thanks to our neighbours to the south) that their approach won't work. Our crime rates have been steadily falling for the past two decades.
ReplyDeleteAs a victim myself (house break-in, property theft, vandalism of car X2 - a grand total of about $5-6K out of my pocket) in the past two years I'd like to see something done that would get a message through to the jackass kids who did all that stuff, not sure what, but it definitely isn't Harper's "tough on crime approach". I don't see how locking them away for longer would help in the long run.
Sean if we are going to talk about black-holes of spending, we should rightfully focus on health care first. I can't think of a bigger money pit than our health care system. Similarly, I agree that throwing more money at the problem is not the solution for fighting crime either.
ReplyDeleteAnon 5:56, what is the real issue on crime? Are you going start one of those big it's poverty, systematic, the criminals have no control over the destiny, blah, blah, blah rants? Easiest way for people to learn? Consequences for their actions. There is nothing for that right now.
I think we all can agree that the insurance industry is scum (they rank wedged somewhere in between lawyers and real estate agents). Not sure what Harper can do about their decisions on premiums, policies, deductibles, processing of claims??? I certainly hope you aren't advocating that a government intervene in an entire industry and set prices and policies, are you?
Hey Anon 8:02 - easy on the lawyers.
ReplyDeleteI don't have the answer to prevention or punishmnet for youth crime. But there has to be some consequence to action. Not all young offenders are from the poor and down trodden group. In my case the police said one set of parents seemed to take their child's actions seriously - they took away his IPod. Somehow I didn't feel any better.
Anon 5:56, what is the real issue on crime? Are you going start one of those big it's poverty, systematic, the criminals have no control over the destiny, blah, blah, blah rants? Easiest way for people to learn? Consequences for their actions. There is nothing for that right now.
ReplyDelete---
How many criminals have you ever met/known?
I've know more than my share and they all seem to share one similar characteristic. They don't actually consider the consequences of their actions BEFORE committing a crime.
Should there be a consequence? Absolutely.
But the existence of a consequence is only meaningful to people who are actually going to consider that before committing a crime. Let's be realistic. The majority of people who commit crimes (especially young people) do so not because they don't fear the consequence. They do it because they don't actually think they are going to get caught in the first place.
As a teen, I had several friends who used to steal car stereos on a fairly regular basis. Not one of them actually considered the consequences. Not because there wern't any potential consequences, they knew ther were, but because it never even crossed their minds that they would actually get caught.
The real way to deal with crime is to deal with the main reasons why crime occurs which is poverty, lack of education and lack of potential jobs. That is the simple reality. Simply lokcing up individuals does not fix the problem nor is tossing in Canadians who pass one joint to another going to fix the problem. It would be nice if Steve actually funded programs such as the prison farms so that criminals could be trained to do something useful for society.
ReplyDeleteWe all know the jail system currently is largely a school for criminals so why if we toss more people into jail do we think that its going to solve the problem in the long run? I personally would like to have lower taxes and less people in jails instead of funding your big government lock everybody up attitude.
Too bad Steve will never stand up to the insurance companies and protect consumers from being ripped off.
Anon 9:44 you're an idealistic idiot.
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful place the world would be in your dreamland scenario. For those of us living in reality though, we prefer a solution that has a chance of actually working.
You say the main reason for crim is poverty, lack of education and lack of potential jobs..... first off there is no lack of potential jobs, maybe of jobs that criminals deem themselves worthy of. But there are several jobs out there for people willing to work them, and work their way up.
Eliminate poverty? Where have you been the last millennium? This has been a problem for societies forever and a day. Not saying it is not a worthy pursuit, but if our crime fighting tactics hinge upon solving poverty we may as well wave the white flag now.
As for education, there are programs available for people incarcerated. The problem more or less lies in convincing them to actively take part in them. But then again, nothing is the criminals fault is it? Why should they be required to show any initiative.
All your attitude does is continue to create a "it's not my fault I commit crime" attitude. I only do it because there are no jobs that I like, or I do it because they didn't have the training program that I WANTED in jail, I did it because I am poor.