A
AlchemisTO
Guest
The last two nights in Toronto, whether I was on the TTC or just walking home from a pub, have been unpleasant, uncomfortable and, even though the stats prove otherwise, I felt at all times like I'd be safer in a large American city.
Last night, some drunken white undergrads were yelling in the subway car, pushing each other into the walls, hanging from the bars and trying to wrestle each other while spilling food all over the seats. After enduring this for ten stops, I had a twitching desire to punch the ringleader in his face but, of course, that would mean that the rest of them would gang up on me. Ten against one; whou would even speak up and object? The rest of the subway car patrons gave a resigned shrug and tried to pretend that nothing was going on. On the subway ride today, two girls on the platform at Castle Frank were shining lasers into people's eyes and flipping them the bird, then later on College, more drunken frat boy types were yelling expletives at the top of their lungs and kicking in signs. Finally, the Bloor night bus tonight had to stop when a homeless woman came on board and demanded money from people. After she had squeezed her way onto the bus and we were stopped for ten minutes, even the normally meek Toronto crowd had enough and told her to **** off, with one guy grabbing her by the sleeve and tossing her onto the sidewalk. The guy sitting next to me, a TTC employee, told me that drivers were helpless to do anything and the protocol is for the drivers to sit and wait there until the police or special constables arrive.
This was perhaps a pretty instructive two nights in Toronto since I just got back from living in New York where this kind of behaviour would never occur. There are two very simple reasons for this: first of all, if you attempted to do anything like what I saw in Toronto, the ubiquitous NYPD would be on you so fast and force you down onto the ground to be humiliated in front of everyone else. Second, in US cities, there is the really latent threat that if you push people around they could very easily take a gun out of their pocket and kill you. As a result, I never felt threatened or nuisanced anywhere in New York city, regardless of what neighbourhood I found myself in or what time of night it was. In Toronto, however, I am annoyed at least once a month by bad public conduct such that even though I had more to fear in New York, I feel less safe and more irritated in Toronto. What I think I was most scared of is that for an instant, in that subway car when those kids were behaving like assholes, I was really considering physically harming them very seriously. In other words, the situation I found myself in - even though it was not as severe as a mugging or attempted assault - nearly drove me to new lows of depravity; an almost animal-like level of violence.
What to do?
I'm not at all advocating that we carry loaded handguns in our jackets to threaten stupid kids who run amok on our subway with death. What I am advocating, however, is that our police force start to tackle crimes at a root level, and that we step up our police presence to make a statement that this kind of crap should not be tolerated. You start by adding CCTVs and then doling out harsh penalties for 'nuisance crimes': vandalism, turnstile jumping, destruction of public property, making a racket, etc. Gradually, the public becomes aware that this is not tolerated and it also trickles down to reduce more severe crimes.
I'm a libertarian, so I feel very strongly about individual freedoms, but I also feel that other people being inconsiderate to that degree takes away from my natural right as a human being to seek peace and not be harmed. I'm very torn on this because I know that if you give the police an inch, they'll use it as a precendent and take a mile. Soon the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms - a powerful and very civilized guidebook on how to run a society - will be simply worth the paper its printed on. What should we do?
Last night, some drunken white undergrads were yelling in the subway car, pushing each other into the walls, hanging from the bars and trying to wrestle each other while spilling food all over the seats. After enduring this for ten stops, I had a twitching desire to punch the ringleader in his face but, of course, that would mean that the rest of them would gang up on me. Ten against one; whou would even speak up and object? The rest of the subway car patrons gave a resigned shrug and tried to pretend that nothing was going on. On the subway ride today, two girls on the platform at Castle Frank were shining lasers into people's eyes and flipping them the bird, then later on College, more drunken frat boy types were yelling expletives at the top of their lungs and kicking in signs. Finally, the Bloor night bus tonight had to stop when a homeless woman came on board and demanded money from people. After she had squeezed her way onto the bus and we were stopped for ten minutes, even the normally meek Toronto crowd had enough and told her to **** off, with one guy grabbing her by the sleeve and tossing her onto the sidewalk. The guy sitting next to me, a TTC employee, told me that drivers were helpless to do anything and the protocol is for the drivers to sit and wait there until the police or special constables arrive.
This was perhaps a pretty instructive two nights in Toronto since I just got back from living in New York where this kind of behaviour would never occur. There are two very simple reasons for this: first of all, if you attempted to do anything like what I saw in Toronto, the ubiquitous NYPD would be on you so fast and force you down onto the ground to be humiliated in front of everyone else. Second, in US cities, there is the really latent threat that if you push people around they could very easily take a gun out of their pocket and kill you. As a result, I never felt threatened or nuisanced anywhere in New York city, regardless of what neighbourhood I found myself in or what time of night it was. In Toronto, however, I am annoyed at least once a month by bad public conduct such that even though I had more to fear in New York, I feel less safe and more irritated in Toronto. What I think I was most scared of is that for an instant, in that subway car when those kids were behaving like assholes, I was really considering physically harming them very seriously. In other words, the situation I found myself in - even though it was not as severe as a mugging or attempted assault - nearly drove me to new lows of depravity; an almost animal-like level of violence.
What to do?
I'm not at all advocating that we carry loaded handguns in our jackets to threaten stupid kids who run amok on our subway with death. What I am advocating, however, is that our police force start to tackle crimes at a root level, and that we step up our police presence to make a statement that this kind of crap should not be tolerated. You start by adding CCTVs and then doling out harsh penalties for 'nuisance crimes': vandalism, turnstile jumping, destruction of public property, making a racket, etc. Gradually, the public becomes aware that this is not tolerated and it also trickles down to reduce more severe crimes.
I'm a libertarian, so I feel very strongly about individual freedoms, but I also feel that other people being inconsiderate to that degree takes away from my natural right as a human being to seek peace and not be harmed. I'm very torn on this because I know that if you give the police an inch, they'll use it as a precendent and take a mile. Soon the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms - a powerful and very civilized guidebook on how to run a society - will be simply worth the paper its printed on. What should we do?