Statistics just out on Canada’s crime situation are being introduced as both good and bad news. The good, perhaps surprising to many of us, is that overall Canada’s crime rate is down. The bad, not so surprising, is that incidents of youth crime, particularly violent youth crime, are up almost across the board. Little PEI, for example, while scoring a significant drop in overall crime of 11% (better than any other province), took a hit of +38% in youth crime, indicating that other crime must certainly have fallen solidly.
Particularly frightening to most of us are the growing incidents of “swarmings”, where temporary gangs of young people, often mixed male and female, attack people at random, seemingly only for the sport of the horrifying event. Swarmings take place on a twice per week basis in
The level of violence in these swarmings is shocking. Baseball bats, pipes, 2 x 4 lumber and other weapons are mentioned, as is the too common and inexplicable assault of jumping on victims heads on the pavement. The average citizen recoils when even reading the details of these assaults, unable to find comfort in a “it won’t happen to me” attitude since these attacks seem only motivated by being on the wrong street at the wrong time. Continue reading
Last week I read some comments from people responding to an online “Topic of the Day” regarding Sidney Crosby and his contract for 43.5 million over the next five years. Most were supportive of the Cole Harbour boy and the fantastic success he is having in NHL hockey. Only a few made comments suggesting that the dollar figures were a little out of line with other areas of “employment”, while some Cole Harbour people optimistically suggested that he use his new wealth to build them a hockey arena.