Pubdate: Mon, 04 Dec 2006 Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC) Copyright: 2006 The Vancouver Sun Contact: http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477 Author: Ian Mulgrew, Vancouver Sun MAYOR TRIES TO CREATE A DISTRACTION Call For Crackdown On Street Nuisances Is A Bid To Draw Attention Away From Dismal Year Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan says we have a serious problem with public disorder. Two weeks from now, Sullivan will ask council to endorse what he calls Project Civil City. He wants to use $1 million from the proposed Olympic Legacy Fund to improve the handling of annoyance complaints. It's essentially a clampdown on beggars, street drug dealers and petty nuisances. While proclaiming a breakdown of public order that is "the elephant in the room that everyone tries to ignore," the mayor shouts, "Hire more bylaw officers and prosecutors!" At the same time, the B.C. Progress Board is urging immediate government action to reduce the perception of crime and improve justice by reining in lenient judges. I think Sullivan is looking to distract attention from his dismal first year in office, and the progress board is just plain out to lunch. The board appears to be a law-and-order echo chamber, consisting of former attorney-general Geoff Plant, John Winter of the Chamber of Commerce, Mark Withenshaw of the Insurance Corporation of B.C., Provincial Court Chief Judge Hugh Stansfield, RCMP Supt. Marianne Ryan, deputy attorney-general Allan Seckel, and Robert Watts, provincial director of community corrections for the Solicitor-General's Ministry. Still, I'm shaking my head that so many normally smart people would associate themselves with such a shallow perspective. The total number of Criminal Code offences is down from a decade ago by nearly 15 per cent. Period. Property offences are down, violent offences are down. Still, if your political agenda warrants, you can manipulate the statistics and conjure a boogeyman. But the bottom line is, the problem we face with crime is the same we've always faced. Only there's a little less of it today. Robert Hunter, who runs the criminology department at Simon Fraser University and is an author of the B.C. Progress Board's report, knows that. He also understands there is no reason on earth at the moment to start gnashing our teeth and wringing our hands because B.C. has become Sodom on the Pacific. But who wants to be the bearer of tepid news? Hunter acknowledges the decline in crime rates but nevertheless, like Sullivan, he cranked up the rhetoric. I look at Sullivan's comments in the same light. "Despite the heroic efforts of our front-line police officers, Vancouver has a serious problem with public disorder and property crime," Sullivan said. "It's taking a daily toll on all of us -- and by ignoring it, we're hurting those who need our help the most." Be still my beating heart -- the bums are taking over the city and preventing us from helping those sick orphans! There are far more pressing problems for the city and provincial government to tackle than some phantom crime wave, an imaginary soft-on-crime judiciary or a scary army of make-believe moochers. The Vancouver police department and its fellow law enforcement agencies across the province are doing a damn fine job most of the time, in my opinion. Crime is down across the board -- how often, how strongly, must that be repeated? Moreover, the population dynamics have changed from the late 20th century, when there were far too many testosterone-charged young males running around. Also, as someone who reads judgments and attends far too many criminal trials, I think B.C. judges actually do a pretty good job in sentencing. Which is not to say that out of the thousands of cases heard each year, there are not egregious rulings that are ridiculous. But I regularly call attention to those -- precisely because they are newsworthy in their rarity. Yes, panhandlers, the drug-addled or the mentally ill can cause inconvenience, civic embarrassment and tourist unease. They always will. We could improve social programs, create more low-cost housing, step up services for the addicted and mentally challenged . . . there are a host of things we could do that would be productive and help alleviate these problems. Spending more money to harass the poor, the disadvantaged and the indigent isn't one of them. - --- MAP posted-by: Derek