Q&A with L.A police chief about Toronto crime, ethnic gangs

[Hakluyt]

“Bratton: Tell me, the gang violence that you are experiencing, what is the racial or ethnic background of the gangs?

Journalist: That’s a refreshingly blunt question. Some say it may be as high as 80 per cent Jamaican. But no one knows for sure, because people here don’t like to talk about that.

Bratton: You need to talk about it. It’s all part of the issue. If it’s Jamaican gangs that are committing the crimes, well then, go after the Jamaican gangs. And don’t be afraid to go after them because they’re black. That’s the last thing you need to be concerned with.

Journalist: Oh boy, I can see the complaints coming in already. You have to understand the climate here. The major local daily in Toronto, the Toronto Star, says it doesn’t believe in “gratuitously” labelling people by ethnic origin.

Bratton: Well, that really helps identify who they are, doesn’t it? The next step will be to refuse to allow the police to identify people by their race or ethnic origin. That type of societal consciousness really goes to extremes.

Journalist: I’m sure you heard that Toronto’s mayor and our prime minister blame the Boxing Day shooting on you Americans....

Bratton: Mm-hmm, yes. They talked about the problem of guns coming in from the United States. But whose hands are the guns in? You have to look at all sources of the problem. It is a combination of lax gun laws, which certainly contributes to our problem here in the United States, but ultimately the responsibility is on the individual who pulls the trigger....

Journalist: NDP Leader Jack Layton has pointed to “despair” and “poverty” as the root causes of crime.

Bratton: When you put too much emphasis on the idea of poverty being the cause of crime, you’re as much as saying that just because you are poor or disadvantaged, you are going to resort to crime to get by. And that’s a phenomenally racist and insensitive attitude. The vast majority of people who are poor do not resort to crime”.

more: http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/justice/article.jsp?content=20060116_119563_119563

[Blaphbee]

“Journalist: NDP Leader Jack Layton has pointed to “despair” and “poverty” as the root causes of crime.

Bratton: When you put too much emphasis on the idea of poverty being the cause of crime, you’re as much as saying that just because you are poor or disadvantaged, you are going to resort to crime to get by. And that’s a phenomenally racist and insensitive attitude. The vast majority of people who are poor do not resort to crime”.
The liberal mindset reveals itself yet again!

VOTE LNSG 2008

[raven]

Q: NDP Leader Jack Layton has pointed to "despair" and "poverty" as the root causes of crime.
A: When you put too much emphasis on the idea of poverty being the cause of crime, you're as much as saying that just because you are poor or disadvantaged, you are going to resort to crime to get by. And that's a phenomenally racist and insensitive attitude. The vast majority of people who are poor do not resort to crime. A small percentage do. But he is correct that one of the influences on crime is poverty. If you make a city safer, you will create more jobs. In our case in Los Angeles, and in your case in Toronto, you'll create more tourists coming in, who will spend more money, create more jobs and create more tax revenue. But if the place is deemed to be unsafe, you are not going to have that economic benefit.
Yeah dude this is TOTALLY fucked up. Btw how many Canadians are there in this forum? Is it just us three and Sinclair?

Btw Blaphee whats LNSG? :D

[Sinclair]

Libertarian National Socialist Green Party I think.

The whole thing is that even though there are indicators that better standards of living in poorer areas would probably help crime, nobody's gonna go about doing it right. They're gonna drop a bit of money here, a bit of money there, never looking at more important issues, like increasing the number of jobs that provide a decent wage but don't require a great deal of education, or doing something for schools beyond a bit higher funding for a little while.

More time in the slammer would only work if Canada based its jail system around avoiding what systems in the US have done wrong.

[raven]

Libertarian National Socialist Green Party I think.
I've heard of this group. Was he joking or are they actually making a serious bid in trying to run for an election? They are way too unPC for that to ever happen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_National_Socialist_Green_Party

[Blaphbee]

Yeah dude this is TOTALLY fucked up. Btw how many Canadians are there in this forum? Is it just us three and Sinclair?

Btw Blaphee whats LNSG? :D
I'm guessing so.

LNSG? = http://www.lnsg.org

Probably the only political group I'd even consider voting for, if democracy as a system didn't reek of stale AIDS.

[Sinclair]

That the interviewer specifically mentions Jamaicans shows they know their stuff... A lot of people want to portray the gun problems as a black thing, and a lot of people see it as that because they're ignorant, but Jamaica is pretty messed up, and that's been imported. Crimes committed by blacks in Toronto are disproportionately committed by Jamaicans. I bet there's a lot of blacks, and a lot of black leaders, who are pissed about the fact that even when race gets addressed, it stops at "black".

[raven]

That the interviewer specifically mentions Jamaicans shows they know their stuff... A lot of people want to portray the gun problems as a black thing, and a lot of people see it as that because they're ignorant, but Jamaica is pretty messed up, and that's been imported. Crimes committed by blacks in Toronto are disproportionately committed by Jamaicans. I bet there's a lot of blacks, and a lot of black leaders, who are pissed about the fact that even when race gets addressed, it stops at "black".
Yes obviously there are many people who call it a "black" thing. Perhaps these people are not from the Toronto area? I don't know. The Jamaican crime most likely is disproportional among blacks but isn't the Jamaican community quite large in the Toronto? I know they have the Trinis, the Guyanese, etc. but I think most blacks in Toronto are Jamaican right?

[Jonathan]

The whole thing is that even though there are indicators that better standards of living in poorer areas would probably help crime, nobody's gonna go about doing it right. They're gonna drop a bit of money here, a bit of money there, never looking at more important issues, like increasing the number of jobs that provide a decent wage but don't require a great deal of education, or doing something for schools beyond a bit higher funding for a little while.
I'm actually becoming more and more skeptical about the whole "economic black-spot" explaination for crime. For a start, not all poor people committ crime(obviously). Secondly, wealthy people often committ crime too(and I'm not just talking about tax evasion either). For example, a small community in Ireland tirelessly campaign to their local representatives to have a facility built for the local youths who were ingaged in anti-social behaviour(the idea being that the community centre would guide the youths from their wayward habits). After being built, that same community centre was vandalised by the very youths that it was built for. Another example is that one of Dublin's most notorious drug gangs is located in "Silicon-valley-Ireland" a prosporous area with plenty of good job opertunities and relatively high incomes. I don't mean to substitute one cliché for another, but "Where were the parents?". There is only so much help that the State can provide in order to "break the cycle" but it's a two way thing and everyone involved has to do their part. Lastley, and I'm not completely sure how to explain this one but - large cities (irrespective of poverty) tend to create criminals like nothing else.

[Starr]

Bratton: When you put too much emphasis on the idea of poverty being the cause of crime, you’re as much as saying that just because you are poor or disadvantaged, you are going to resort to crime to get by. And that’s a phenomenally racist and insensitive attitude. The vast majority of people who are poor do not resort to crime”.

A phenomenally racist and insensitive attitude? where did that line come from. it doesn't seem to fit in with anything else he was saying.

what am I missing?:confused:

As a police chief I would assume he knows a lot of realites about race and crime and he didn't seem too afraid of political correctness.........and than that typical PC speak. I guess sensitivity training has left his mind all messed up. LOL.

Unless he, while knowing a large number of gang-bangers and other assorted scum, are a certain "special" race still falls back on the "they are not all bad" insanity. Which being in the position he is in, would make him even more retarded than most.

[Hakluyt]

Starr, it's 'racist' (colloquially defined) because putting all the focus on poverty, while deemphasising or ignoring community problems, leaves one to logically conclue that Jamaicans are more criminally inclined - when impoverished - than other ethnic groups.

I think very few make the purely-economic argument to begin with, but it is a fair comment on his part