This assumes LE is monitoring this board... just want to express my thank you to the VPD for trippling enforcement in the downtown eastside because:
1) it is obviously going to spread the drug trade to other communities... and the longer LE stays in the downtown eastside area, the more ways the drug trade will entrench in other parts of town. These drug dealers and their cohorts will find cheap rooming houses, places to rent, etc., in other neighbourhoods, and new bases will be created. Where there is a demand, a supply will be created. So once LE shrinks its numbers back down to the usual, voila - we suddenly have had a permanent spreading of the problem to other areas.
2) the bad pooners are going to love all the new druggies and fresh meat recruited into the SW trade from the spreading into other neighbourhoods. Got an underage daughter you love? Well my friends, now thanks to LE, she is at greater risk of bad influence and giving blowjobs to old men for easy money.
3) watch your local property taxes and other community taxes rise due to the damage local councillors are going to perceive to their neighbourhoods.
4) pity the poor homeowners trying to make a buck being landlords in this depressed economy. The ever increasing pressure to provide low cost rent is going to be attractive to the druggies and their cohorts. Unfortunatley, most landlords are going to go through hell once they've found out they're rented to these unsavoury individuals.
5) Increasing arrests is short sighted. After getting out of jail, and they will get out, we have more hardened criminals. Want to know why your druggies and prostitutes are getting more and more violent? If they spent any time inside, that is likely the reason. And for offences related to drugs and prostitution, you can be they wouldn't have had much rehab... so the chances they come out hardened and thus more violent increase.
6) Drugs and prostitution virtually go hand-in-hand when neither are operating in a legal setting, and the nature of drugs and prostitution is unwieldy and intractable. When forced to go underground, drugs will always be the motive for prostitution and the vicious cycle becomes entrenched. Is LE so stupid that they can't understand this?
The list can go on and on... you do not need much education or imagination or intelligence to see the consequences.
VPD has many faces. Yes, they sometimes do a heroic job enforcing laws against violence, etc. Other times they are just plain stupid or self serving. This last move to triple their force speaks only of the latter. I wonder if it is budget time coming up for the VPD? Could it have motivated their trippling enforcement so that they can justify asking for budget increases? What really incenses me is the hypocritical way they go on the airwaves patting their backs on what a great job they are doing when you can easily sense their other motives. And worse yet they make unsanctioned use of new public policy (ie: the 4 pillars approach) to excuse their actions. The 4 pillars approach was supposed to be done in coordination with the other pillars, so that a correct balance would be achieved in order to attain results. An imbalance of any one pillar takes away from the 4 pillars, making it the same monolithic approach they've used in the past.
With legislation on the horizon to legalize prostitution in Canada, you can count on the police's next move: targetting the sex trade very hard to get as many arrests as possible before it becomes legal. They've done it before in other areas, they'll do it again.
I would love to see LE apply the ethics they tout themselves having. If they have none, they should at least have the courage to stop the grandstanding. Very few people who take an active role in the community, from politicans, lawyers, doctors, etc., are fooled by the stupidity of the latest action... and the VPD knows it. I wonder who it is they are trying to fool then?
I may be expressing some great contempt here for the VPD, but only because I feel intelligent criticism of its policies would further the safety of the community. Hey LE, I don't hate you. I just wish you would grab a brain and do your job right because we need you.
1) it is obviously going to spread the drug trade to other communities... and the longer LE stays in the downtown eastside area, the more ways the drug trade will entrench in other parts of town. These drug dealers and their cohorts will find cheap rooming houses, places to rent, etc., in other neighbourhoods, and new bases will be created. Where there is a demand, a supply will be created. So once LE shrinks its numbers back down to the usual, voila - we suddenly have had a permanent spreading of the problem to other areas.
2) the bad pooners are going to love all the new druggies and fresh meat recruited into the SW trade from the spreading into other neighbourhoods. Got an underage daughter you love? Well my friends, now thanks to LE, she is at greater risk of bad influence and giving blowjobs to old men for easy money.
3) watch your local property taxes and other community taxes rise due to the damage local councillors are going to perceive to their neighbourhoods.
4) pity the poor homeowners trying to make a buck being landlords in this depressed economy. The ever increasing pressure to provide low cost rent is going to be attractive to the druggies and their cohorts. Unfortunatley, most landlords are going to go through hell once they've found out they're rented to these unsavoury individuals.
5) Increasing arrests is short sighted. After getting out of jail, and they will get out, we have more hardened criminals. Want to know why your druggies and prostitutes are getting more and more violent? If they spent any time inside, that is likely the reason. And for offences related to drugs and prostitution, you can be they wouldn't have had much rehab... so the chances they come out hardened and thus more violent increase.
6) Drugs and prostitution virtually go hand-in-hand when neither are operating in a legal setting, and the nature of drugs and prostitution is unwieldy and intractable. When forced to go underground, drugs will always be the motive for prostitution and the vicious cycle becomes entrenched. Is LE so stupid that they can't understand this?
The list can go on and on... you do not need much education or imagination or intelligence to see the consequences.
VPD has many faces. Yes, they sometimes do a heroic job enforcing laws against violence, etc. Other times they are just plain stupid or self serving. This last move to triple their force speaks only of the latter. I wonder if it is budget time coming up for the VPD? Could it have motivated their trippling enforcement so that they can justify asking for budget increases? What really incenses me is the hypocritical way they go on the airwaves patting their backs on what a great job they are doing when you can easily sense their other motives. And worse yet they make unsanctioned use of new public policy (ie: the 4 pillars approach) to excuse their actions. The 4 pillars approach was supposed to be done in coordination with the other pillars, so that a correct balance would be achieved in order to attain results. An imbalance of any one pillar takes away from the 4 pillars, making it the same monolithic approach they've used in the past.
With legislation on the horizon to legalize prostitution in Canada, you can count on the police's next move: targetting the sex trade very hard to get as many arrests as possible before it becomes legal. They've done it before in other areas, they'll do it again.
I would love to see LE apply the ethics they tout themselves having. If they have none, they should at least have the courage to stop the grandstanding. Very few people who take an active role in the community, from politicans, lawyers, doctors, etc., are fooled by the stupidity of the latest action... and the VPD knows it. I wonder who it is they are trying to fool then?
I may be expressing some great contempt here for the VPD, but only because I feel intelligent criticism of its policies would further the safety of the community. Hey LE, I don't hate you. I just wish you would grab a brain and do your job right because we need you.