This is the same problem that keeps repeating itself like a broken record. Residents complain about drug related crime while the police and the city refuse to do anything about it. The Vancouver Province is reporting that Residents of an East Vancouver neighbourhood say the City of Vancouver must respond to a “surge” of prostitutes, crime and drug activity that they say is endangering area families and harming children. The petitioners want the city to bar prostitution from residential neighbourhoods and contain it within a “red-light” district.
Banning drug addicted prostitution from residential neighborhoods is a no brainer. Yet creating a red light district is indeed problematic because drug addicted prostitution is nasty. The residents are fed up with the bizarre extreme they are facing and are willing to resort to any compromise to get it out of their neghourhood. Kensington-Cedar Cottage may be in East Vancouver but it is nowhere enar the DTES and it is indeed full of kids. Allowing that kind of criminal activity in a residential nehgbourhood is in itself criminal. So is rewarding outrageous behavior.
Likewise the Vancouver Province is reporting that "four men charged after a Downtown Eastside drug den was shut down and the premises sold have had their drug charges stayed by the federal Crown. Randolph Brown, Shawn Brown, Mark Chung and Dennis George Knibbs were charged on a 15-count indictment after police searched the former Backpacker Inn in the 600-block Alexander Street and seized more than $300,000 worth of cocaine, heroin, marijuana and crystal meth. An estimated $50,000 in cash was also seized."
Do you remember that case? The police sent out press releases patting themselves on the back for busting a ruthless drug ring that was exploiting addicts and the crown drops the charges. The pattern of corruption continues. Once again the problem is the public drug dealing of crack.
Handing out free crack kits or free crack pipes is not the answer and is the exact opposite of the New York model everyone raves about. Crack pipe vending machines aren't the answer either. They are promoting the problem instead of confronting it. Homelessness and rising rents are a legitimate concern. People need homes not drugs.
It is interesting that not much is being done about crime in this area, because the City of Vancouver sure was fast off the mark when a few neighbours complained about Noise from a skate board park in their area. You do have to wonder. Its o.k. to have drug and sex trade workers in an area, but not o.k. for skate boarders.
ReplyDeleteOf course the real issue is the people who purchase the `services` of drug addicted sex trade workers. they must be real prizes.
With homes selling for over a MILLION in the area, I`m sure the problem will be solved when the developers have a chat with mayor moonbeam.
Its about time the province offered decent medical treatment for drug addicted sex trade workers and then an alternative following their treatment. treatment needs to be at least 2 months and not the usual crap of 28 days. Nothing much changes in that time. People who have lived on the streets supporting themselves and their habits in the sex trade, need months of help. It may cost a few buck up front, but in the long run it will be so much less expensive.
The best treatment for any crack addict is 3 months without crack. If that means incarceration, so be it. Not 30 years, 3 months. That's not excessive and is the best thing for the addict. As for the sex trade, drug addicted prostitution is the epitome of exploitation. Their drug dealers are the pimps that engage in brutal exploitation. It is human trafficking at it's worse.
DeleteNot being that conversant regarding "treatment" for crack addicts, if you say, 3 months, then 3 months sounds like a reasonable time period to me. It would give people an opportunity to restore their health.
ReplyDeleteAs to incarceration, not so much. A secure facility, yes with no exit. Jails just don't work that well. If people are to be helped with their addictions, a reasonably nice place would be best, in a rural setting where there is some real peace and quiet. A jail simply does not provide that.
Three months without crack is the best thing for them. I'm not saying people should be incarcerated for being a drug addict. Yet if someone is a prolific offender and creates a huge amount of property crime to support their habit then incarceration is a natural consequence of the criminal activity and could be used to help the offender get off the crack.
DeleteWell said, most drug addiction is an opportunity that is carried out by any meens to acquire. Given time away can certainly progress a persons will to recover.
DeleteIt's best to intervene early, yet it's very difficult to find treatment facilities, especially for adolescent females. I recall the facility last year that was closed where parents were willing to pay upwards of 20,000 to help their kids. Since many of the girls who end up on the street have graduated from the broken foster care system, they can't afford that sort of cash. We don't need the American boot camp system either. These girls have been told they are trash enough times already. They don't need a muscle head with the same dog eared copy of The Art of War yelling at them. We need cash infused at the bottom, rather then waiting until people hit the federal system. We need to do something about F.A.S. Enough with the conferences. As Joey Shithead (DOA reference) said, talk minus action, equals nothing. Let the frontline workers do their thing.
ReplyDeleteEveryone wants more money. More money for crack pipes. More money for safe inhalation sites. More money for free harmful drugs. That is not the answer.
DeleteLet me tell you the drug addicted sex trade worker is getting brutalized by her drug dealer / pimp as we speak. They give them crack for free then beat the life out of them for payment. When they get a trick they take all their money and if it's not enough they get brutalized. There is nothing consensual about it.
I never said anything about boot caps especially for the addicts. I'm saying we need to arrest the drug dealers that are brutalizing the sex trade workers and if a crack addict has committed 30 property thefts they should be taken away from the drug for three full months.
The DTES is a failed social experiment and every day we let it continue we are becoming accomplices to the brutal violence.
I love your blog and stand. My issue is with how our government is starting to go---increasingly towards the U.S. "tough on crime stance." It doesn't work. I hate that we are starting to allow companies to make profit over pain. They charge big bucks in fighting addiction and anorexia---it used to be provided by our health services. It's wrong. For every conference and committee that is held the money could be used in the front lines. Instead of caring about our internet usage under the terror bill and saving money by using student workers in the summer, and not having a coast guard, they should actually try to stop the flow of drugs coming in. I'm so sick of the suits who have never done the job making the decisions. I joke that if every person who got out of jail early after he killed a prostitute had to live beside a judge maybe things would change, but it won't happen. Somebody I went to school with was killed by a person on the DTES and I often wonder about her life. He got little time.These are real people that we joked with in high school and shared secrets with. Vanessa had the greatest smile. I didn't know her well, but I remember that. They don't deserve these lives or deaths.
DeleteYeah Stephen Harper is a raging lunatic that not only has no idea what he's talking about says one thing and does another. Stephen Harper is not tough on crime. Just look at the people he has working for him.
DeleteIt all revolves around the Dianne Rock story. Her boyfriend was a longshoreman who sold crack on the side. After getting her addicted to crack and forcing her into the sex trade she ended up dead on the Pickton Farm. Before she was finally killed she was gang raped on that farm. That would imply more then one suspect.
it would be considerably less expensive if society dealt with issues as they came up We have only to read the latest report from Ms. Turpel-Lafond, Child and Youth investigator, for the Provincial Government. her report basically tears the B.C. lieberals a new one. The Cabinet Minister responsible, not available for comment. . (Lailla Yuile's blog)
ReplyDeleteThis isn't the first damming report Ms. Turpel-Lafond has written. Have there been improvements? Not so much, but hey Christy Clark and her crew managed to blow a couple of hundred million on a fare card system which doesn't work and they're going to blow another $8 Billion on a dam we don't need.
If a government can't care about the children in their care, then they don't care about anything important. That is a government which needs to go. During the 14 yrs. the B.C. Lieberals have been in office nothing has been done to help the children who need it. We still have the highest rate of child poverty in Canada and no poverty reduction plan. And people wonder how this province got to be so bad? Well there is a whole generation which grew up in these conditions and it isn't going to get better with the impending cuts to education.
Social services in Prince George is the problem because they put kids into foster care and raise them without consequences. The kids can do whatever they want and they don't have to go to school. That is child abuse.
DeleteHow can the civic government of Prince George possibly have an impact on the Ministry of Children and family development which is a provincial government ministry? If there is a problem it is throughout the province. Hats off to all the frontline workers who are there because they give a shit and do the best they can with what they're given.
DeleteYou're right it is a provincial department. Yet he foster care program in Prince George is a disaster.
DeletePlacing children in foster care ought to be a last resort and the foster care must be better than living with their own parents. One of the problems is there is a shortage of social workers to oversea these foster homes. Sometimes it is better to leave a child in the home, with a support system. But again there isn't any funding for this kind of approach.
ReplyDeleteIt is difficult to "make" a child go to school. Just how do you do that. good parenting helps. making school an inviting place to go helps. providing the child something they want at the school. if these things are lack, their won't be much success.
I do agree, not providing a child with an education is a form of child abuse. it sets the child up for failure.
some children do not do well in our school system, but the provincial government refused to provide adequate funding to school boards so they can establish alternative educational programs.
i'm sorry but those boots are incredible and i would like a pair
ReplyDeleteDennis Knibbs killed one of my best friends in 2005. Since then, he's been able to acquire a Lamborghini, sell drugs and assault people?
ReplyDelete