EDIT: If you are downvoting, please explain why. Are you OK with repeat offenders taking up taxpayer funds? Do you disagree that there’s a problem? What is it that you dislike? This isn’t a topic we can ignore.

Not long ago, there was an article posted saying that over 50% of court cases in Ontario are basically dismissed because there aren’t enough resources to handle them.

But every time I read police statements for crimes in my region (Durham), I notice a pattern:

Kaley-Ann FREIER, age 25, of Ajax is charged with: Assault with a Weapon x2 and Fail to Comply with Probation Order x3.

Keith Theodore CONSTANTIN, age 45, poses a significant risk to the community, especially children. This individual has a history of serious criminal convictions, including Sexual Assault, Sexual Assault with a Weapon, Assault with a Weapon, Assault, Robbery, Possession of Explosives, Uttering Threats, and multiple violations of probation orders.

London BOSSIO, age 28 of Whitby is charged with: Robbery; Assault With A Weapon and Breach Of Probation.

Noah COLLINS, age 21, from Brock is charged with: Assault with a Weapon or Imitation Weapon; Assault/Cause Bodily Harm; Fail To Comply With Undertaking and Breach Of Probation

Jalil Luddin SAYAH, age 28, from Oshawa is charged with numerous offences including: Pointing A Firearm x2, Assault with a Weapon or Imitation Weapon x2, Possess Firearm While Prohibited, and Fail To Comply With Release Order x5.

Marten WOODS, age 37, of No Fixed Address is charged with: Uttering Threats to Cause Death or Bodily Harm; Point a Firearm and Breach of Probation.

Michael DE LAURENTIIS, age 41 of no fixed address is charged with Mischief/Damage Property Over $5000, Theft Under, Possess Property Obtained by Crime Under $5000 and Fail to Comply with Probation Order.

Zachary LINTNER, age 33 from Courtice is charged with: Break-and-Enter, Possess Property Obtained by Crime Under $5000, Fail to Comply with Release Order, and Fail to Comply with Probation Order x2.

Joseph DAVRIEUX, age 55 from Clarington is charged with: Break-and-Enter, Dangerous Operation, Flight from Police, Operate a Conveyance While Prohibited, and Fail to Comply with Release Order x2.

These happen daily, and it seems like the all of our resources (police, courts, victim services, etc.) are being drained by individuals who are simply not compatible with society.

What solution(s) do we have that are effective and could be agreed upon by all political parties? This madness has to stop.

  • Jerkface (any/all)English
    111·
    5 days ago

    You’re not going to like the answer. It’s treating people with dignity, offering social services, offering healthcare, and perhaps most importantly, offering PUBLIC HOUSING.

    • Showroom7561OP
      33·
      5 days ago

      You’re not going to like the answer.

      You aren’t wrong. I like the answer, and believe those would be helpful to a small number of people who genuinely did not intend to commit a crime and used poor judgment on their “worst day”.

      However, none of the rest applies to some of these individuals, and it makes the assumption that only poor, sick, homeless individuals are committing crimes. That’s not true at all.

      Most already have homes, healthcare, access to social services (access doesn’t mean they’ll use them), and simply act as if the rules don’t apply to them.

      The problem is that these criminals know they won’t have to suffer any consequences of their actions, so probation or court orders don’t mean anything. Certainly not after the 5th time they “promised” to behave.

      Surely, this problem has a solution that we can all agree on.

      • Jerkface (any/all)English
        5·
        5 days ago

        Where are you getting your information when you say:

        Most already have homes, healthcare, access to social services (access doesn’t mean they’ll use them), and simply act as if the rules don’t apply to them.

        … because as someone who has been struggling to get the services I need for more than a decade, it sounds like your head is up your ass. None of us are secure in those things and many lack some entirely.

        • Showroom7561OP
          31·
          5 days ago

          Where are you getting your information when you say:

          Most already have homes, healthcare, access to social services (access doesn’t mean they’ll use them), and simply act as if the rules don’t apply to them.

          In the cases within Durham Region, the police reports themselves, the expensive homes where these criminals have been arrested from, news reports/interviews. Someone trafficking drugs through their million dollar home isn’t doing it because of lack of social services.

          But Canada-wide, you can see that crimes (and repeat-offences) aren’t only lumped into low-income or homeless demographics.

          … because as someone who has been struggling to get the services I need for more than a decade, it sounds like your head is up your ass. None of us are secure in those things or have them at all.

          That’s truly unfortunate, and I’m sorry to hear that.

          I know several people who’ve been able to easily access a multitude of services from Ontario Works (even when they have no plans to work), various mental health programs (Whitby Shores, CAMH, etc.), and to get housing. The problem that I see, and that could be why you’re having difficulty, is that services are being given to those who truly aren’t in need, taking resources away from those who are.

          We do need better access to services, no denying that.

          To get back to my original post. There’s an obvious concern with repeat offenders. Perhaps if we could have a more efficient justice system, we’d have money to spare for those social services programs. But we’d need to figure out how to deal with crimes the first time, and not the 3rd, 4th, 5th time, and not assume that they are being committed due to external factors (a repeat violent rapist can’t possibly justify their actions being down to their circumstances).

      • Paragone
        21·
        4 days ago

        There’s an incorrect-assumtion in there, I think…

        IF one sees a graph of crimes committed,

        say one depicts numbers-of-crimes as the Y-axis, & severity-of-crimes as the X-axis,

        THEN one’s going to see that the most crimes are minor, right?

        there’s going to be a powerlaw ruling the relationship between numbers-of-crimes & severity-of-crime: the greater the severity, the fewer-instances of it…

        Now … mix-in the problem that living-wage isn’t a legal-right in any jurisdiction in North America…

        AND mix-in the problem that white-collar-crime isn’t prosecuted the way that blue-collar-crime is ( theft which causes the disemployment of multiple people will not likely result in prison-time, but multiple retail-thefts will be more likely to do so )

        What the economic-system itself becomes, then, is a “conveyer belt producing criminals”, in some sense…

        & the single greatest indicator of whether a person’s going to be charged with crime is whether they’ve already been charged with a crime…

        Remember the now-discontinued “scared straight” program, or whatever it was called?

        Apparently it backfired: when you aquaint youth with jail, you normalize it, so you’ve moved the frame-of-reference, & now criminality is much more normal than it had-been, in their minds, so … they’re more likely to be going 'round criminaling on ye, see?

        I think that the real tough-cases are the ones you’re seeing, the ones who don’t rehabilitate, & the actual most-cases isn’t them.

        ( I also wish there was some systematic get-lives-out-from-criminality’s-churn mechanism like “Doing Time Doing Vipassana” the documentary showed really works, for some people )

        _ /\ _

        • Showroom7561OP
          3·
          5 days ago

          Yes! “The majority of criminal cases in the province have ended with charges being withdrawn, stayed, dismissed or discharged before a decision at trial since 2020. In 2022-23, the latest fiscal year of data available, 56 per cent of criminal cases ended that way…”

      • Paragone
        12·
        4 days ago

        Bright lines, & hard walls.

        Sometimes hard/actual consequences are the ONLY correction which produces any result.

        Female-cultures tend to assume that social-pressure’s entirely-sufficient ( Scandinavian cultures are this ).

        There’s a Scandinavian country where a serial-murderer keeps being let out, because he keeps saying he won’t do it again, so the authorities let him out, & he murders yet-another innocent life…

        I’d force those damn incompetent authorities to be the lives that serial-murderer got to take-out next: teach them some ACCOUNTABILITY, & their future-incarnations would have respect for actuality, one hopes…

        They are accessories to that murderer’s murders, & they themselves just get off without any accountability??

        We have to have a system which can identify where the system is most failing, & correct that.

        Those … idiots … who hold that social-pressure’s sufficient, & evidence “can’t” falsify social-consensus … need to be deemed criminally incompetent, at least.

        _ /\ _