Complaining is a little bit like using the hair of the dog to “cure” a hangover. It feels good at the moment but it doesn’t do anything to actually fix the problem that it is supposedly addressing. Complain all you want, but unless you’re willing to do some work and get to the root of a problem, the energy you expend might as well be spent yelling at a wall to get out of your way for all the good it will do.
If you’ve been around Thompson in the springtime for the last few years, you know that this season brings problems with it. Cars get broken into, windows get smashed, fires get set and rocks get thrown at cars driving by the cliffs on Mystery Lake Road. If that wasn’t bad enough, this spring we have had a group or groups of youths, according to witness descriptions, roaming around and seriously injuring people in apparently random stabbings. Crime, whether petty or serious, is affecting a lot of people.
Unfortunately, while many people are quick to post their ideas for preventing this on the internet, not many of them are game to actually do it in real life, whether because they are too busy working or caring for children or want to stay home and watch the Stanley Cup or the NBA finals. So while it can be encouraging to see that your Facebook group dedicated to creating safer streets attracts 600 members in just a few days, it can be disheartening when you plan a live, in-person meeting and only a handful of those people bother to show up.
There are already police whose job it is to help keep the streets safe, true. But at any given time, according to Insp. Brian Edmonds, the officer in charge of the Thompson RCMP detachment, there may be anywhere from four to 10 cars on patrol in the city. You don’t need to be a mathematical genius to figure out that even a small portion of Thompson’s population keeping an eye out for anything suspicious in their neighbourhood can cover a lot more territory than those police officers.
People’s tendency is to want problems to be solved for them by someone else. They want police to prevent and punish crime, various governments to come up with programs to keep bored youth occupied and somebody to open a particular business that they wish existed in Thompson. Most of the time, they don’t want to do it themselves. But when it comes to making streets less dangerous, there is actually safety in numbers. Night time isn’t when most crime occurs because there is actually something different about that time of day, apart from the fact that it is darker and maybe some people are more likely to be drunk or high than they are at 9 a.m. Being outside at night is more hazardous because there are fewer people around to watch out for you than there are in the day. In some countries, where people tend to live in smaller homes than they do in North America, it is common to see dozens, even hundreds of people out on the streets and in public parks until 10 p.m. in the summer, even midnight. Not coincidentally, these countries tend to have lower rates of street crime than we do in Canada.
There are several groups in Thompson that share a common goal: to keep eyes and ears on what’s happening outside and to prevent crimes before they happen merely because having a witness is discouraging to would-be vandals. They aren’t expecting overnight success, but without support they might wither and die. With it, they could make the streets at least a little safer and help build the bonds that turn the places people live into actual communities. If you don’t have the time to volunteer for them yourself, maybe donate them some equipment or even just offer moral support. But don’t just sit back and complain about things to your friends or to strangers on the internet if you want real change. Talk is cheap. Taking action is considerably harder.
