Keith Hobbs has it partially right. The mayoral candidate has been preaching for years that the city is approaching crime prevention from the wrong direction.
According to experts, sinking money into social programs and catching criminal behaviour at its roots is the way to go.
And from what has been proven in other municipalities, they’re right.
But to say the city has done nothing for the past decade and demand an apology from Mayor Lynn Peterson, as he did Wednesday following the launch of the city’s crime prevention council, is a bit unfair.
The city does support plenty of initiatives that aim to keep Thunder Bay’s youth on the straight and narrow.
And the crime prevention council, though perhaps a decade or more too late, does show the city is listening to its critics – Hobbs included – and starting to take action.
This council, expected to hold its first meeting in mid-December, will bring together stakeholders from the city, police, social services, education and several other groups, to tackle the problem from all sides.
That they’ve reached this stage of the game shows city officials have been thinking long and hard about the problem, and are trying to do it the right way the first time, not blindly react to the cries of others.
According to experts, sinking money into social programs and catching criminal behaviour at its roots is the way to go.
And from what has been proven in other municipalities, they’re right.
But to say the city has done nothing for the past decade and demand an apology from Mayor Lynn Peterson, as he did Wednesday following the launch of the city’s crime prevention council, is a bit unfair.
The city does support plenty of initiatives that aim to keep Thunder Bay’s youth on the straight and narrow.
And the crime prevention council, though perhaps a decade or more too late, does show the city is listening to its critics – Hobbs included – and starting to take action.
This council, expected to hold its first meeting in mid-December, will bring together stakeholders from the city, police, social services, education and several other groups, to tackle the problem from all sides.
That they’ve reached this stage of the game shows city officials have been thinking long and hard about the problem, and are trying to do it the right way the first time, not blindly react to the cries of others.
