Pubdate: Wed, 07 Jan 2009
Source: Calgary Herald (CN AB)
Copyright: 2009 Canwest Publishing Inc.
Contact: http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/letters.html
Website: http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/66

NOW WE SEE THE VICTIMS OF VICTIMLESS CRIMES

First it was an innocent person blinded by a bullet in the face. Now,
another innocent man lies dead, a victim of gang violence in
Calgary.The time has come for us all to adjust to a disturbing new
reality.

Complacency is no longer acceptable.

We are not referring here to the Calgary Police Service or to city
hall. Both take the situation very seriously: Given the limits of
available resources, the difficulties of penetrating some communities
and cumbersome legal procedures--especially regarding easy bail-- the
police can hardly be faulted for the mayhem on the streets.Meanwhile,
Mayor Dave Bronconnier's urgent appeals for provincial help deserve
the support of all law-abiding citizens of Calgary.

Rather, Calgarians should first seek no further refuge in
denial.

In particular, the casual dismissal of gang crime, that when one
criminal kills another criminal the result is just one less
criminal--never a praiseworthy opinion to begin with--now fails even
in its sole purpose, that of emotionally distancing the person
uttering it from something he'd rather not care about. After all, if
it could happen to a Brazilian student out for an after-dinner walk
with his girlfriend, or to a man dining alone, it really can happen to
anybody.One can hardly write off the possibility as a one-in-500,000
chance.People buy lottery tickets with far worse odds and that's not
counting near misses: more bullets have been fired than have hit
people, criminal or innocent, and some in parts of the city the people
who live there once thought of as safe, or at least, out of the line
of fire.

Even more, however, Calgarians must accept that if they do illegal
drugs, they are part of the problem. For without the attraction of the
high profits for little effort that goes with the trade in illegal
substances, there would be little reason for gangs to organize. Some
holdouts, of course, might make this an argument for legalizing
narcotics.But that, too, is a form of denial; society has already
taken a position on the availability of substances likely to be
harmful to one's health. The idea that the tobacco trade should be
legally and progressively stifled, but that far more damaging
substances should be legalized simply stands common sense on its head.

The truth is that a straight line of consequence connects the
recreational buyer of banned drugs to Keni Su'a's body in the morgue
and Jose Ribeiro Neto's blindness.

Of course, the police priority must be to go after the people doing
the killing, and legislative change may well be needed to ensure gun
crimes just aren't worth the risk.

However, it's also time to go after the buyers. The Canadian Criminal
Code already contains significant penalties for drug possession, that
judges are strangely reluctant to impose. That has to change: the law
not only forbids certain behaviours, but also signals what is right,
and wrong. That is, contrary to the popular bromide one can legislate
morality and when the penalties imposed on the customers of organized
crime become sufficiently meaningful, public perceptions will change.
It is within the power of government and the judicial system to make
getting caught with drugs so harmful to personal reputations that it,
too, won't be worth the risk.

We do not wish to encourage a culture of fear.However, it serves no
good purpose to irrationally play down the danger to public safety.
These are not victimless crimes: They never were, and now it should be
blatantly obvious.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin