Statistics Canada has announced crime figures that are surprising. Crime rates, across the board, are at the lowest in twenty-five years. Criminality has declined by three percent from last year, virtually everywhere.

There were other surprises.

Urban life was reported to be safer from crime than small-town living, calculated as a crime-per-person. Toronto and Montreal are two of the safest cities in the world; in fact, several western cities are more dangerous than Hog Town: Regina, Saskatoon, Calgary, and Edmonton, for example.

So, why are we under the impression that "crime is out of control," "the courts are soft on crime," "there's no justice for law-abiding citizens," "the system lets youths get away with everything," and so on?

Perhaps Conrad Black will end up in some "Club Fed", but I'll bet few of the moaners-and-groaners about crime-out-of-control would be willing to put in a weekend at such luxurious prisons, wherever they may exist. Prisons promise violence plus physical, sexual and drug abuse . . . besides their loss of liberty.

Talk-show blow-hards may jump on every case of re-offense, and journalists are keen to tell us about every case of an idiot mixing alcohol with a gun, as if these are every-day events. We hear of a dramatic shooting in Toronto's Eaton Centre and assume that this happens every Saturday night.

Yellow Journalism is happy to promote such misconceptions because titillation sells papers or draws viewers. And there are politicians who want to build their image on get-tough policies: three-strikes, adult jail for adult crimes, and other simple-minded approaches to complex social problems.

Team up these politicians with inflammatory journalists and we end up with exactly the misconceptions which these Stats Canada figures debunk.

It might be acceptable if the only results of such bad journalism and political laziness were a few misconceptions. What we find growing, however, is a sense of near-panic.

Parents and seniors, especially, become paranoid about using the streets, buses, and parks. Once we accept a few extreme examples as if they are normal, we become open to accepting even greater stupidities. Like the three-strikes-and-you're-out automatic sentencing policy. We can end up trading hard-won civil liberties for the impossible assurances of get-tough demogogues; we trade our democratic heritage and processes because we're scared. Scared of nothing real, according to Stats Canada's scientific studies.

We should be scared. Scared of these politicians and their media side-kicks. Simplistic solutions are no substitute for clear thinking, especially about crime.

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Copyright © 2007 Fred Ryan/Log Cabin Chronicles/08.07