Discussions

I was Born and Raised in the Wheat City, I have watched so many trends come and go. One trend I find very hard to accept is people who feel it is alright to steal property of any kind that does not belong to them.  
 
I have read all about the never ending cycle of sheds, garages and homes constantly being broken into, where anything and nearly everything that is not nailed, screwed of connected to the property is stolen. Many of these thefts are connected to the rise in the drug trade.  
 
Last night my Son had his Mountain Bike stolen off the back steps (Out of sight) of my Mother's house in the South End of Brandon (Neelin High School area), this is the second time my Mother's house was subject to a crime. The first incident to me could have easily been treated as a home invasion, yet "Only Property was taken" I read the Police Report and I was "Pissed" with the lack of investigating, to me being treated like just another number.  
 
in all my years, experience as well as common sense I was amazed of the lack of resources, investigation put into this.  
 
How do you all feel about the level of crime, do you feel Police are doing all they can do to help the citizens in the Wheat City, What do you think can be improved on, changed, etc.  
 
CIAO

The "lack of resources" put into investigating theft shouldn't be surprising to anyone. This has been the case virtually everywhere for many years.  
 
Brandon already spends somewhere around 20% of its entire city budget on policing. Having the police spend hours investigating a single bike theft is not an efficient use of time or tax dollars.  
 
As sad as it is, theft is all too common, and if resources are poured into investigating the theft instead of dealing with the root causes, we won't get anywhere. At this point it really is incumbent on individual residents to protect their property and make theft as difficult and unattractive as possible. Get cameras, lock stuff up, hide and secure attractive or valuable items.  
 
There is simply no way the police can invest significant efforts into simple theft, and doing so probably won't solve the problem as nobody is likely going to serve significant jail time for stealing a bike.

I generally feel that the BPS has offered reasonable solutions to bike theft problems. Unfortunately, they rely on each individual's action to care for their own belongings. You can register your bike's serial number with the BPS so that if it is stolen and found it can be returned to you. Ultimately though, you can't just rely on other people to keep you and your things safe. Some people will take what they can get, and if that's a bike that's been left out in your yard then that's what they will do.  
 
As the previous poster mentioned, police in general are not very focused on theft. Though sometimes it feels like the police aren't really very focused on anything, but I'm not really here to rag on the current police systems in North America. I hate to say it, but you just need to look after your own property. There's little you can do to stop people from trying to break into your garage, but you can make it hell for them to try.

With the high volume of various crimes within many communities, Police Departments have been able to adapt to various trends, with Cadets monitoring “smaller” crimes such as Bike Thefts, Break ins to shed/garages, in time a database can be made  
Of known individuals who do specific crimes.  
 
People may say the resources are  
Not there yet I’d rather see Police Services being more pro-active than not.

We have all be told in our lives at one time  
Or another that if it doesn’t belong to you leave it alone.  
If a person wants something you have it doesn’t matter how secure you make it as they will take it.  
I have always believed that being Pro-Active is key.

It would help if the criminal justice system had the teeth to properly punish and deter these scum thieves.  
Property owners are the victims here and that seems to have been forgotten, we are being treated as second class citizens, either way we pay for it all.

I was involved with Emergency Services, Front  
line for over 15 years. Once the Youth Criminal Justice System came into play it has made a joke of the entire Criminal Court System, more than it was already.  
All that is handed out to any young offender is a slap on the wrist. Anything from “youth have nothing to  
Do” to “my kid would never do such a thing” to  
Any other excuse under the sun. The victims are now being treated like they are the criminals, “you should have locked your bike up”” if you would have locked your garage or shed up this would not have happened.  
 
Pro-Active policing needs to be put back to  
Where it matters. People will continue to take the law into their own hands, I have already seen this.

You nailed the problem within first 4 words, high volume.  
 
Say an officer or a cadet spends all day thoroughly investigating 3 or 4 thefts, the problem is they probably get 2,3,4x that many per day, they never get ahead, and only end up creating mountains of paperwork that gets shuffled away and forgotten about, and then we complain when they get on the top 100 over 100k list due to all the overtime  
 
These thieves just go along, house after house, block after block, it would be interesting to see how many houses on average they hit in a night, figure 10 minutes per place and move on, probably safe to say they can do a couple blocks a night, probably more depending if they bypass obviously difficult yards.  
 
I bet you could ask almost any officer in this city and they could probably fire off 5 or 10 names that they see on a daily or weekly basis, unfortunately there's no punishment, its basically like catch and release fishing.

Remember that:  
 
Neglecting small thefts will end up dealing with big crimes.  
 
Maybe one soultion is that police personnel to be paid by each solved crime and not by salary or hourly wages. Then we probably will not have bicycle theif or break/ enter people or other crazy criminal which might seems small damage for police personnel but they are still big damage (emotionally and financilly) for an individul family.  
We lost 5 bicycles in the past worth few thousand dollars in total , all were locked up. Police never did anything about them in past 5 times. That is why small crimes are getting more and more.  
If they were paid by each solved crime , the small crimes were rare by now.

That would bring a new problem, police would be pressured to "solve" crimes, more than likely leading to a lot of false arrests, it would also lead to a lot of corruption when officers have a hard time paying bills.  
 
And what good would solving your bike theft do when the offender just gets recycled back onto the street to do it again a day or week later, the only thing we can do as a society is make the punishment stronger.  
 
But where do we draw the line, 10 years in jail for stealing a bike, 20 ?  
 
It's a messed up world and seems to keep swirling, theft is just a small cog in it

I believe it should be their responsibility to work off the cost and inconvenience of these thefts. If they are under age it is a parent or guardian's responsibility if they still live at home. They are given a slap on the wrist and there is not enough consequences.  
There is a lot of jobs that are very unpleasant that could be done to pay these debts.

If they were in any way responsible in the first place they wouldn't be stealing kids bikes, then why would they feel any responsibility once they got caught to work some unpleasant job when they won't work that job now ?

Ok, so why are people stealing bikes? My understanding is that it's frequently associated with the drug trade, as is the case with a lot of petty crime. The bikes are basically used as currency.  
 
So, wouldn't it make sense that channeling more money into resources to deal with addictions could help with the larger goal of deterring these types of crimes?  
 
Edit to add: Lots of you seem to be suggesting that we can police our way out of this by being reactionary - more cops, harsher penalties, pay-per-crime etc. The solution to most problems are avoiding them to begin with.  
 
It's incredibly simplistic for me to say so, but it seems like the solution is the pour money/resources into the front end. I guess this is where the defund the police movement comes from in part? It's not popular among taxpayers because they often perceive their money as wasted, but it's being wasted now.  
 
In the long run, it's cheaper to replace your whole roof rather than patch it every time it rains. Sure, it's expensive to replace it, but evey time it leaks it does more damage and eventually destroys the underlying structure. You dole out smaller amounts up front, but in the end it costs you more.  
 
Edited by Abbysmum, 2022-10-04 23:41:59

Doling out punishment for crime does little to actually prevent crime that is instigated by a larger cause. As you've mentioned, bike theft has a lot to do with drug trade in most cases, therefore the solution is to improve mental health/addictions services, as well as safe injection sites. Improving these services will do a lot more in the long run than simply reducing bike theft (ie reducing other drug related crimes, reducing homelessness, etc.)  
 
Punishing people for addictions does not suddenly mean they are no longer addicted to whatever substance. This ties in with a previous discussion on this site regarding panhandling and homelessness. There is no logical reality in which apprehending or fining a homeless person will just suddenly make them not homeless.

This perfectly summarizes the issue. People always want more policing, harsher penalties, etc. Patch the roof as you say, and spend an absolute fortune doing it constantly, over and over again. At what point do we come to terms with the fact that all those patches are really expensive and we've wasted a lot of money getting nowhere?  
 
The defund the police movement didn't get much traction because it was a bit extremist... But the overall logic is pretty sound. If you're spending 20% of your entire city budget on reactive enforcement, at what point do you consider whether a proactive approach to the root cause might work better? A ton of money is being spent patching a problem that will never be properly fixed using that method.

Being forced to work to pay the restitution is not about them it is about the victims, as it is the victim that looses the most here. If they had to work to pay for the stolen property then the victim would not be out that money to replace.

I spent over 15 plus years serving my community, solving crimes and charging those who commit the crimes. We had a 98% success rate on every crime we dealt with, we stayed pro-active, we took the time to speak to citizens of all ages. It did not matter how much workload we had, how many cases were on the desk, each case was looked at it as a case, not just a file number, each case belonged to an individual.  
I saw many officers come and go, many were there just for the pay-cheque, many were also just there to put in time before they were able to transfer to bigger departments with "more action".  
Don't get me wrong there is still some great officers that remember where they came from, know the true meaning of pro-active policing, serving and protecting. Then again there is a lot that are just in it for the pay, action and consider many cases as a number.

As previous posts, I served my community for over 15+ years. I have seen Police Officers who are passionate about the Job, remembering where they came from. Then so many are just in it for Money, as well as getting face first into the action (closing of the bars, fights).  
 
I am very disappointed in the lack of pro-active policing there truly is. People will always say Lock this up, Lock that up, in many ways make the victims the suspects.

Placing all crimes as high priority is and always has been key. Every crime on a person is devastating no matter the level of the crime. Each Bike theft is done for a variety of reasons, mostly Drug related.  
 
The Criminal Justice System has let alot of people down, the only ones that benefit the justice system is the criminals, Many people charged with an offence will spend months in front of the courts as each court date they are given is remanded. I have seen someone charged with Impaired Driving have their case remanded, drags on in court for what, who does it benefit, it plugs up the court system.

In a perfect world this would work, unfortunately the Parents either fear their children, will state "My child would never do that or it's this person who is the bad influence"  
 
On Numerous occasions the courts have advised these kids that they would pay restitution for the cost of the damages or cost to replace what they stole, yet it usually never happens, then it ends up a civil matter.