Reducing Crime in the core -SCAN
Probably the most significant tool tool to reduce crime and no ones talking about it
Several posts have had ME comment on crime as the true detriment to bring back residents. Regardless of the stats, the perception of crack houses is not even an issue in the ‘burbs
Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods (SCAN)
Public Safety Investigations Units are using SCAN legislation in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Yukon, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.
Investigators take action on the properties where there is evidence of illegal activity. Almost all operations are closed through informal actions, usually by asking the problem tenants to stop their activity or by asking the landlord to evict the problem tenants. Community safety orders are almost never needed. After investigation and surveillance, about half of complaints show no evidence of illegal activity, and the files are closed.
Manitoba Department of Justice: Public Information Legislation
Saskatchewan Department of Justice: Public Information Legislation
Yukon Department of Justice Public Information Legislation
Nova Scotia Department of Justice Legislation
Newfoundland Department of Justice Public Information Legislation
Alberta Solicitor General and Public Security Public Information
Here is an editorial about a Liberal Mpp’s private member’s bill for SCAN legislation that would make it easy for a neighborhoods residents and landlords to remove drug dealers from their apartments. What amazes me is that this story is not making news in Windsor and no munipal politician or the police have not stated a public request for this incredible tool for cleaning up a neighborhood
This is my personal opinion but I recommend landlords and residents write your MPP to ask them to have the Liberal gov’t adopt and pass their own MPP’s BILL. Call your Councillor and ask them for a resolution to be sent to the Province and to create the investigator position.
Post Feedback
While I agree in principle with the concept of the legislation, Toronto Community Housing raises an important issue. What about people with mental disabilities; rental families with children; etc. Under the proposed legislation, they could all be evicted for recurrent use of say, marijuana.
The Government must proceed cautiously with this bill. Because if you do not deal with the root causes of the problem in a satisfactory way, throwing people out on the street could result in increased criminal behaviour.
Failure to have supportive programs in place (which would also increase government expenditures) will only exasberbate the problem further.
http://www.torontohousing.ca/webfm_send/4961/1
As well, legislative requirements place a burden on already cash-strapped landlords. Landlords would have to keep the unit vacant for up to 90 days as per other provincial legislation.
Considering Windsor has a 10-13% vacancy rate already, this could also increase the burden on landlords and result in increased incidences of absentee landlords and property degradation.
While the intent of the legislation is good - it would have to be carefully crafted to ensure the issues raised for community social housing are not repeated in for-profit housing as well.
As with any government involvement responding to a political situation, unforeseen issues will undoubtedly develop that have not been considered.
I imagine the municipality or police could simply have each inspectors job description to include crack, cocaine, meth where the people with disabilities or children are actually safer when taken out of the home
However, media and we bloggers debate alot about theories, studies and committee’s while a tangible tool such as this doesn’t make the news or gets discussed. I think thats just as much of a story as the SCAN legislation itself. This is something that can be put to use almost immediately.
I have no issue with the landlord burden for the same logic of massage parlor, filling a vacancy with one of these bldgs creates far more vacancy and financial hardship for many more surrounding landlords and property owners
The fact that so many other jurisdictions have this legislation allows us to examine many unforeseen isses. We wouldn’t be breaking any new ground here.
“usually by asking the problem tenants to stop their activity”
I don’t know about anyone else but I’m totally buddied-up enough with people conducting illegal activity that I can just politely ask them to stop and they’re completely receptive to the idea.
I think its because “the ask” comes from a police officer who as an investigator’s report in his hand that can guarantee an almost immediate eviction.
Mainstream media, where are you on this issue?????
Chris S,
I am sure from observation those with mental disabilities would be noticed as would children playing or yelling. That is why there is an investigation first before anything happens.
The Toronto Community Housing is more worried about the stigmatized “perception” of the public housing areas. As if they aren’t perceived to be the high crime areas that they truly are.
As for “cash-strapped” landlords…well too bad! That doesn’t give them the right to rent to criminals or those engaging in criminal activity. AS it is Windsor has a very high rate of out of town landlords that care less about the community their house sits in. It is evident in most areas that have rental properties in Windsor. Just look at the shape these rental units are in. The majority are in horrible shape! Which tells us that those landlords care only about the money they receive and nothing for the community.
I do not see the correlation of increased vacancies and the degradation of the properties. Many of them can’t get any worse. Besides shouldn’t the city be checking these rental units to make sure they aren’t a health or safety hazard? Also, how does a high vacancy rate increase absentee landlords? The reason we have so many out of town and absentee landlords to begin with is the low cost of housing in Windsor as compared to other cities.
I say pass the legislation and attack the crime! Of course we do need more supportive programs. I would rather my tax dollars go this style of spending than garbage politics like a $900 health tax premium that has done nothing to increase acces to our healthcare. Or spending $500,000 ona new Trillium logo for their liberal palls or a new 25% pay increase for MPP’s that have done little to increase my quality of life.
Juxtaposeur,
They (landlord and tenant) would receive a letter indicating the activity is to be stopped. Then the province would proceed with the next step.
This would also make sure that landlords will check to make sure their tenants are not doing anything illegal. In actuality it would help them to get decent tenants without all of the headaches. As a person who has to enforce my aunt’s tenants to pay their bills this would be most welcome. As it is it takes almost a year to evict a tenant and at great cost to the landlord. How does that help a landlord in high vacany times?
I say push the legislation forward! Our cities and communities will only benefit from it.
Could it be that this relates back to the general ‘disconnect’ between people within our own neighbourhoods? We don’t know them, talk to them, associate much with the folks in our own neighbourhoods. We have not taken the time to ask their names, introduce ourselves, make our presence known. We don’t rely on one another for anything. We exist in cubes. We uphold and hang on to, promote our own myths and prejudices about our neighbours. I cannot help to think that somehow our lack of desire to ‘know’ who we live with and around has a key part to play in crime within our neighbourhood and city. I am saying that ‘knowing’ our neighbourhood will stop crime, but my experience with crime, persons who commit crime, which is a mere 20 years in the field, suggests that knowing your fellow citizens has a dramatic influence on your geographical crime rate. Thoughts, opinions and opposition always welcome!!! Take care everyone….
Jane Jacobs would agree with you Steve. She wrote about the power and safety of “eyes on the street” as the best method of security almost 50 years ago.
Just look at what Walkeville’s Monmouth neighbourhood has accomplished. I don’t know for certain, but the level of community they’ve built would tell me that that the level of crime there would be seriously reduced. They know anyone who doesn’t reside there and keep an eye out for each other.
We really need to hear how they pulled that off and teach it to other neighbourhoods.
sorry, one line in there is supposed to say “I am not saying that knowing our neighbourhood with stop crime…”
my mistake.
steveg
Actually Steveg, I think that you had it right the first time. Knowing our nieighborhood is the best crime prevention tool at our disposal
My issue is that I wanted to discuss this when I confused the issue with the canal
There are ways to build opportunities for participation into a neighborhood as well as CPTED (Crime prevention through environmental design)
One example is: Front porches and small picket fences denoting property lines so people can see if someone that doesn’t.
Good points ME.
However, I don’t think many landlords knowingly lease to drug dealers or gang members. My father was a landlord for a good number of years. When he found out there was criminal activity going on - he evicted them if they didn’t stop. Granted, not all are like my father, but I presume most are.
But under this legislation, if the landlord does not know but neighbours do, in theory, the landlord could be shut down for 90 days. Not really fair in my opinion. Only you are responsible for your own actions.
Fixing the social ills in public housing by throwing criminals onto the street does not address the underlying problems of public housing - namely public housing in of itself and the conditions which force some people to seek public housing.
If neighbours have seen this “criminal” activity; where are the police? Ontario has hired 1,100 additional officers across the province. Now governments propose to create another layer of bureaucracy and method of intrusion into your private property?
Let’s say I don’t like you, ME, as a neighbour. But lets suppose you like smoking marijuana - Perfect opportunity for me to get rid of you. You’re breaking the law by smoking it (as defined by “use”) so out you go. Then the province or city assumes ownership of your property.
I know the intent of the law is to go after the hard criminals - but that is what our police are for. Working within the existing framework could be an alternative.
Insofar as residents being nervous reporting criminal activity is bogus. Set up an anonymous snitch line at Windsor Police and let them do what they are paid to do: investigate. Much like the noise bylaws. You call, they go to the home in question. Calling an investigator is no different.
These investigations I also question whether or not they infringe upon basic civil liberties.
Will they require a search warrant to enter your premises as the police do? The average law abiding citizen doesn’t have anything to worry about, however, to investigate a complaint requires proof - which would require some form of search and entry into the premises.
I have problems with the presumption of “guilt” before “innocence.” Imagine a frivolous complaint. An investigator knocks on your door and then what? I would flat out deny them entry into my home. Would that make me a suspect?
Now I don’t know how this program would work, but these are simply some of my concerns that I hope the legislation addresses.
I haven’t done the research but I’ll betcha a case of beer that you can’t find an example of someone who was thrown out for marijuana in any of the four provinces with the exception of a grow operation.
Don’t make marijuana seem that harmless, we’re talking grow houses here, not someone smoking a spliff in the back yard. In that case the children and anyone in the house would be greatly endangered by the likey illegal electrical hookup and potential mold problem.
Snitch lines don’t work because you can’t evict until a conviction is reached. The investigation and court process could take year(s).
Investigators don’t search they observe activity of the house, drug dealing is not that difficult to ascertain, its just extremely time consuming to obtain a conviction.
The community hasn’t told the police how much of a priority it is, As far as I’m concerned the police board is a rubber stamp who will never rock the boat which is what Windsor needs.
When people talk about loss of civil liberties because of tools like these or camera’s it implies the status quo does not cost us civil liberties which is wrong.
I always weigh the potential civil liberties lost by these tools against the freedom and liberties lost by not being safe enough to walk outside at night on your own street or own front yard.
Mark said:
I always weigh the potential civil liberties lost by these tools against the freedom and liberties lost by not being safe enough to walk outside at night on your own street or own front yard.
Ben Franklin said:
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety,
deserve neither liberty nor safety
Great insight steveg! It all begins with reversing the trend set by the invent of the automobile and television. Prior to the introduction of these technological ‘advances’ (and for a short time after), most people participated in community events and knew most of the people in their own neighbourhoods and communities. Face to face interaction on a daily basis is one of the keys to start addressing this disconnect. That is partially what new urbanism principles attempt to address.
BUT if the people aren’t willing then there must be another motivation and crime seems to be a good reason. To reintroduce the concept of knowing, respecting and interacting with your neighbours isn’t an easy task and I’m not too sure if taking the approach of implementing legislation is the appropriate way to do it.
Why not begin to build community capacity, development and cohesiveness by introducing an old concept such as a Nosy Neighbour Campaign. Seems that a neighbourhood in Edmonton is doing just this in reaction to some violent crime:
http://edmonton.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20080815/EDM_aspen_080815/20080815/?hub=EdmontonHome
Why wait around for politicians to try to force a top-down approach onto the citizens? Grass roots advocacy seems to be the resounding trend these days among towns and cities across North America.
Sounds very familiar to many of the sentiments being echoed at the DNC south of the border over the last couple of days. Getting your own house in order by focusing on the people at the grass roots level before even thinking about externalities. Hmmmm…..very interesting and sounds like many of the sentiments being passed around this board.
I’ll inject one of my favourite churchill quotes here…
“First we form our places, then, our places form us”
Jinga, I know the Ben Franklin quote but in his time, people could forcefully evict tenants who were known drug dealers without having to wait year(s) or have authorities make numerous purchases to obtain a conviction before they could even take action.
Whats interesting is Nosy neighborhood campaigns and CPTED approaches of front yard design all incorporate “someone watching” of course its better to have your neighbors watch than a camera. But so far there is no evidence that a camera or a SCAN legislation has ever curtailed someone’s freedom, only the crime they’ve committed has rightfully curtailed their freedom.
Well I”ve done some more research on SCAN and learned some interesting things - particuarly with the Manitoba experience.
It seems, just because a place is a known crack house for example, Winnipeg police cannot do a thing about it because there is no burden of “proof” through evidence.
But aside from that, it seems that in Winnipeg at least, between 2002 and 2007 - 200 homes were shut down. This is misleading.
They were shut down for 90 days.
After 90 days, the problems returned. Magnus Street in Winnipeg is the example used.
Known crack houses abound. Last summer a police officer was gunned down investigating a “known” crack house.
And in Vancouver, the BC Civil Liberties Group is taking the province to court, claiming SCAN is unconstitutional.
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=9b375d7f-a59d-4895-a120-2c15a55ba389&k=40296
Seems people are being victimized unnecessarily there.
The articles states:
“No marijuana-growing operation was found at the Smith home in a subsequent inspection. But hundreds of such inspections have been carried out across Metro Vancouver in the last two years, without search warrants and based solely on the amount of electric power consumed by the homes.”
The BC Civil Liberties explain it far better than I ever could as to the impact of SCAN.
http://www.bccla.org/othercontent/07SCAN.pdf
My above quotation for BC was for a different - my apologies.
However, I did find the debate in the NWT where MLA’s rejected SCAN - as it was written. IT seems I’m not the only one concerned with the implications.
While the intent, as I’ve stated is good, we must be careful in drafting it.
http://www.assembly.gov.nt.ca/_live/documents/documentManagerUpload/07-08-20%20CR%204-15(6)%20-%20Report%20on%20Community%20Consultations%20on%20Proposed%20SCAN%20Legislation.pdf
A women’s group in Newfoundland said it perfectly:
http://www.pacsw.ca/docs/iss-scan-brief.pdf
“We have opposed this legislation since the concept was first introduced in
December, 2006. SCAN does more to diminish the rights of our residents than it does to increase our sense of security.”
And an ottawa residents group has rejected SCAN as proposed, for the reasons I’ve outlined:
http://www.centretowncitizens.org/docs/CSC%202006-07%20Annual%20Report.pdf
The Committee undertook a discussion of the pros and cons of the adoption of Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods Act (SCAN) legislation by the Province of Ontario. There was general recognition that SCAN may allow authorities to address specific problem locations more quickly that is now possible under current legislation by focusing on property owners/landlords rather than on possible criminal activities.
However, there was concern expressed regarding due process and the difference in the standard for conviction: civil (with SCAN) versus criminal (with existing means of addressing certain criminal behaviors).
It was also observed that laws are already in place to address the activities that SCAN would focus on. The Committee rejected support for the introduction of SCAN in Ontario.
“Laws are in place to address activities that scan would focus on. ”
This is about time, weeks vs. months or years. This is about action and crime reduction. this is about true community based policing which means the community supporting the police and not simply pointing at them to work harder or do more.
I wouldn’t put much stock in that community association from their annual report
That community association sounded pretty meek wishy washy, no recommendations to deal with panhandling, no recommendations to deal with drug houses, no recommendations to deal with pretty much anything other than a parole office
I’d like to see [ME] in one of their meetings, I’m thinking someone doesn’t come out alive
Everyone must do their bit to lower crime. However, people do not look at the dynamics of a poor community.
In a poor community most people are trying to keep their heads above water (working more hours, watching their children, cleaning, court problems both personal or from a relative, small amount of time for R&R) than to look out for criminals.
In a book titled “Savage Inequalities”. The author showed how low-cinome earners lived ther lives. How they aren’t just a bunch of lazy welfare stealing criminals. It showed how a low-income life is full of problems and how much time it absorbs from a 24 hour schedule albeit with a focus on how it relates to school work for children.
In most low-income communities they don’t have the time to “watch” for criminal behaviour as their lives are already full from trying to keep a roof over their heads (I refuse to show the many examples listed). to make it more complicated these same people may have to tell on a best friend, close family member or soemone more sinister.
Surely we can find a few people to help out but the police must do more to bridge the gap that exists between police and the community. Riding by in cars isn’t going to win over the hearts of any citizen. We need foot patrols with officers talking with the people if we are to get any results. We need more presence and more investigations into criminal behaviour if we are to succeed in stamping out crime.
By the way, cameras are used all over London UK and other cities there with no issues to “civil liberties”.
I live in the US and in our county, if a landlord fails to evict a person(s) who is/are dealing or using drugs, after notice to the landlord and tenant, then they only have 30 days (I believe) to start eviction proceedings or the property becomes that of the county and is auctioned off, as far as I know. This apparently has only been done a few times right in the beginning after the law was passed, although it apparently continues on, without most of us noticing.
It did seem to get the slumlords and the drug problems out of some areas where it was implemented… The slumlord issues are a totally separate thing, but could be rolled into the same law as well.
As far as drug treatment here in the US, at least in California, you can NOT force help on anyone for drug abuse, unless they are an imminent threat to themselves or someone else, and that is rarely done - even when there are kids involved.
If the drug laws were tougher, and if people were caned here in the states (or shot as they are in some countries) for abusing drugs, dealing drugs, etc., then there would sure be a lot less of it!
BTW, to the poster who mentions marijuana above, ask yourself, would you want your children in an apartment where someone was smoking marijuana and it was coming through your vents? How about crack cocaine or the like?
Would you want anyone on your roadways that were high on marijuana? I should hope not! My daughter’s first boyfriend was killed by a “slightly drunk”, but “within legal limits” driver.
This problem affects everyone, and needs to be stopped. There needs to be a crackdown on people who hang out with gangs, abuse drugs (and in this I include marijuana), alcohol, etc.