Five reasons why addressing property crime is important to building an inclusive community

A September 14 meeting at the Evergreen, chaired by the Westview Ratepayers Society president Ron Woznow, who is also running for mayor of the City of Powell River.

So someone stole a bunch of lawn ornaments from your yard. So what?

So someone went through your garage and made a mess. Does it matter?

Absolutely.

Here are five reasons why consistently addressing property crime is important:

1. It’s the law

The Canadian Criminal Code lays out what is not allowed in this country. Homicide, theft, assault, drug trafficking, breaking and entering – these are all illegal in Canada. If you do these things and you’re caught, you may face consequences for breaking the law.

The law is our very expensive system for maintaining order and (ideally) returning those who have violated the law to their place in society. The system includes the laws themselves, the police, the coroner, the courts, restorative justice measures and sentencing circles, bureaucracies, correctional facilities, probation services, and much more.

When the law isn’t enforced, it renders our entire justice system useless. There is no justice, there is no order.

2. To halt vigilantes

As we’ve seen in this community, often when people commit crimes – especially thefts and property crimes – there seem to be few legal consequences. As was pointed out at the September 14 crime meeting at the Evergreen Theatre, if Canadians don’t trust that the police and courts are effective at curbing crime, they may take justice into their own hands – a dangerous road for everyone.

Even with its flaws, addressing crime through Canada’s existing justice system is preferable to vigilanteism.

3. The social contract

Informally, we all agree to follow the rules of society, so we can live together with maximum rights and minimum disorder. If it becomes okay for some people to break the rules with no consequences, it follows that it’s okay for all of us to break those rules.

Simply put, we can’t have a cohesive, productive community without some basic common understandings of acceptable behaviour.

4. Being a victim of crime is violating and expensive

When someone breaks in to your home or car, or takes your things, it has an impact. It can erode your feeling of safety, or your feelings about your property. Being a victim is stressful and anxiety-causing, as the main article in this section amply illustrates.

When the person who stole your sense of safety from you doesn’t have to face what they’ve done, in court or through restorative justice, it contributes to the violation.

In addition, crime can be expensive. For local businesses, it can cost thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost inventory, lost customers and damage to buildings – and the cost of insurance.

For regular people dealing with smashed car windows or stolen bikes, the costs can be significant, too. The stolen items must be replaced, security purchased, insurance deductibles paid, and property values may decline.

5. To restore community

When you steal and wreck other people’s things, you sever your ties to those individuals, and to the wider community. Ideally, a perpetrator’s journey through court and corrections, or through a restorative justice process, brings them back into society as a non-stealing, non-wrecking, trustworthy neighbour.

The point of addressing crime, in other words, is to halt the crime, and also to restore relationships.

- Pieta Woolley