More police not the answer to gun violence
Social, cultural change best way: researchers
TORONTO — Reducing Toronto’s escalating gun violence, which has claimed 22 lives this year, will require social change, and not a police crackdown, say crime researchers and politicians.
Ramping up the number of officers in at-risk neighbourhoods or reinstating controversial police practices like carding will only push crime to new areas and alienate members of the public, University of Toronto sociology professor Jooyoung Lee said.
“The long-term approach is really to address conditions like intergenerational urban poverty and racial discrimination in the labour market, and helping youth of colour — who are particularly disadvantaged in cities like Toronto — to get a leg up,” said Lee, whose research centres on gun violence and gangs.
Eleven people have been shot in Toronto since Friday. Two people from the city’s rap culture were killed in a daylight shooting on Queen Street on Saturday — Jahvante Smart, 21, also known as Smoke Dawg, and Ernest Modekwe, 28, both of Toronto.
Another four people were injured by gunshots late Sunday in the Kensington Market area, and a man was injured Tuesday morning in an apparent drive-by shooting near the downtown.
Overall, 22 people have been killed by guns in Toronto so far this year. The total number of homicides in the city has been 51 — a figure inflated by the deadly van attack that killed 10 people in April. By contrast, there were 27 homicides at this point last year, including 16 fatal shootings by the end of June 2017.
Mayor John Tory and police Chief Mark Saunders both said the vast majority of shootings this year have been gang-related.
“Being surgical, being strategic and being focused with that gang subculture is a huge concern of mine,” Saunders told local TV station CP24. “We’ve got a plan in play to look after it over the course of the summer.”
That plan involves “knowing who the players are” rather than saturating neighbourhoods with a police presence, he said.
Toronto is still one of North America’s safest cities.
But there are “grave concerns” about the rash of gunplay this year and no easy solutions, Tory said.
“Anyone who suggests ... they have the entire answer in one little slogan or one little policy proposal is misleading the people of Toronto and giving them false hopes,” Tory said. “It is a very complicated issue.”
Toronto will have hired 200 new police officers by the end of the year, and city staff are looking at restoring programs it has run in the past, which gave young people “a more positive alternative than gang activity,” Tory added. The city will also apply to access federal government funding for crime prevention, he said.
Tory also called for “tougher, stricter” guidelines for Ontario’s bail system.