With all the hand wringing and outrage over the gun violence that has gripped and put Toronto in the big league of American cities reeling from Murder Inc., e.g. New York 537 murders, Chicago 443, Huston 336, Philadelphia 380, etc. on the average per annum and the corresponding reaction from the politicians to the police, from the media to the communities affected, the subject is the hot ticket of the day. It seems an opportune time for all the kooks itching to finally collar us into a concentration camp police state to come out of their closets. The effects of the Neocon Agenda and its gutting of the social safety net have finally come home to roost.
Inter gang violence, whether black on black, latin, Asian, etc. is very sexy especially if innocent white bystanders get killed in the mayhem. The emphasis is always on “what is wrong with these people.” The attitude so far has been “well, as long as they are killing each other, who cares…let them kill themselves off.” It is even better if the situation is such as it is in the aboriginal communities where the violence is self-inflicted with astronomical rates of suicide amongst young people from alcohol and drug related self-immolation. And of course no one talks about the higher than fifty percent ratio of the white element in these gangs.
Despite their differences, the one common denominator as it relates to inter racial and inter gang violence is the fact that these groups exist as disenfranchised, marginalized, invisible and exploited minorities in a predominantly white society with white institutions. Another important denominator is that these groups are not spread out amongst the general population but live in tight communities whether racial or economic, where everyone knows everyone else. For good or ill it is to the status within the community that individual members aspire to, especially if they feel there is nothing for them outside the community or in the society at large. Does McLuhan’s tribalism ring any bells here?
Given all of this, it came as a bit of a surprise to hear Toronto Police Chief William Blair’s speech at the University of Toronto debating club last year on the subject of relations between police and the affected communities. Chief Blair acknowledged that the problem was in part due to the ongoing marginalization and disenfranchisement of youth in the ghettoes of the city and the need for government to intervene and help these communities. Just what kind of help was left somewhat vague.
The Chief said that since only a miniscule fraction of the affected communities resorted to violence it was wrong to tarnish whole communities, and that with some diligent police work, the gangs could be isolated and neutralized. Apologetically, Chief Blair also pointed out that there were surely racist officers in the police force, but by and large there were no more racists in the police department then there were amongst the general population. This statement unfortunately is a truism and it obscures the fact that we live in a de-facto racialized society.
So we neutralize some gangs but who is to say there will be no more gangs? How and why did these gangs start up in the first place? How do we eradicate the breeding ground for such gangs? The demagogues say that it must me done with a heavy hand, with the use of extreme force such as the intervention of the military or beefed up police presence and with severe judicial penalties such as obligatory minimum sentencing, etc. Imagine, army or riot police surrounding the various projects, patrolling the corridors of the high rise tenements, tanks and armored cars on the streets and in the courtyards. Great, another Baghdad. The proponents for such measures conveniently choose to ignore the fact that most of these projects already exist in a virtual state of siege. Racial profiling…just what is that? All we have to do is ask the hundreds if not thousands of non-white teenagers living in the projects about the way they are treated by the police and security on a daily basis, which by the way will only result with the violence spilling outside the confines of the ghettos.
Within the context of and as a mirror of the society at large, the history of police relations with these communities speaks for itself. Between 1975 and 2005 Toronto police shot and killed around 50 young people (that they acknowledge) of mostly racialized minorities and wounded many more in the GTA. The vast majority of these people was people of colour and/or mentally disturbed. Every single officer who was charged (most weren’t) was exonerated by all white juries. The police were clearly stating that shooting and killing was their preferred way for dealing with anyone (especially non white minorities) who resisted them in any way, shape or form. They hoped to set a clear example and thought they would cow the target population into compliance by doing so. Their strategy has clearly backfired. Today all these young people are armed to the teeth and firing back at the police when they are not shooting each other.
Chief Blair in his speech acknowledged that the police have extraordinary powers, presumably meaning that the police have an extraordinary obligation to the public. For example, the police with the full sanction of the Law have the right to shoot a fleeing person in the back whether that person is armed or not. Many of those people shot and killed by the police were presumably in the process of fleeing from the police. Were any of them white teenagers between the ages of 15 and 25? None. Almost all of the people shot and killed were black, Latino or south Asian and half of them were between the ages of 15 and 25. Most of them were unarmed or could have easily been disarmed without the use of deadly force.
It looks like Chief Blair is initiating much needed changes within the police department. The really important changes need to come from the various levels of government and the society at large. Here are just a few things we can initiate as a civil society to address this problem
We can:
- Bring high profile community based programs such as film making, theatre, music production, media publication and the performing arts to get the youth within the projects to come out, participate and network with the society at large in meaningful and self-respecting ways.
- Keep youth in the schools by getting rid of the moronic three strikes and you’re out rules foisted on us by the ex Harris government.
- Double the minimum wage to a living wage.
- Provide a guaranteed annual living supplement to anyone living under the poverty line.
- Start a wide range of on the job training programs where employers are paid to hire and train underprivileged youth in meaningful careers and trades.
- Bring back rent control to allow people more freedom to relocate.
- Create stringent psychological hiring practices for the police department with mandated quotas for hiring minorities and women.
- Decriminalize the use of recreational drugs and provide safe, government controlled drug dispensing clinics.
- Legalize and license prostitution to oversee the health and safety of sex trade workers.
- Force the television and movie industries, advertising etc. to profile non whites and minorities for a modicum exposure to the public.
- Make quotas for the hiring of non white minorities into the educational system as teachers and not janitors.
- Re-zone the housing project districts so that people can live and work there, allowing people in the projects to operate small and medium sized business within walking distance of where they live.
Some will say that these programs will cost too much and ignore the enormous amounts shelled out just to maintain the police and correctional services. It costs an average of $100,000 a year to maintain a felon behind bars. Others will say decriminalizing drugs and prostitution will increase crime. The facts prove otherwise. It is the criminalization of these activities that is the real crime. All we need to look at was the misguided attempts at prohibition in the 20’s and 30’s and the culture of crime that created. Alcoholism and drug abuse need to be seen as medical conditions that need remedial help. When these behaviors and tendencies are not treated as such they fester and metastasize into criminal behavior.
The recent report by the Washington, DC. based Justice Policy Institute clearly states that more police, punitive measures and prisons aren’t the answer to reducing gang activity but that investing in jobs, schools and programs for marginalized youth is.
Let us hope we have some new, meaningful and creative solutions to the crisis rather than let the situation spiral out of control and we turn into a Canukistan of the North with gated communities, armed vigilantes and all the sorry rest of it…a police state a la our neighbours to the South. Unfortunately, this latter scenario is already taking place and we have a federal political party in office, the Conservatives, who are beating the war drums for more punitive measures to deal with crime to scare the public into voting for them in the next election. Let us not fall for the same crappy tactics that the Mike Harris government foisted on us more than ten years ago with its dire consequences. Unfortunately Harper’s hired guns are the very same people that ran the Harris government and it looks like we are going to have a repeat fiasco unless we wake up and do something about it.
Bogos Kalemkiar
Toronto
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