25959 replies to this topic

[JimV]

 

As well, councillors extended regulations that control the size, location and spacing of shelters in parks until the provincial state of emergency ends.

 

Not clear why these regulations are needed if camping in the parks is supposed to end.  Also unclear what the provincial emergency has to do with it.  Does that suggest that after the emergency they can go back to wall to wall, party central camping in the parks where camping is not permitted?

[A Girl is No one]

What’s the point of extending them? They are not enforced at all... a quick glance at BHP clearly demonstrates it. Gah. This is crazy making!!!

Edited by A Girl is No one, 19 March 2021 - 11:13 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

^ ^ i think it just means they will keep spacing rules in place until they no longer need to.

[Mike K.]

Who is being honest and sincere?

Local political organizer:

“The Victoria Police Department’s own crime data tells a different story than they are endeavouring to convey anecdotally, and Statistics Canada shows a marked decrease in crime rates in the past decade. However, studies show that while we have been objectively safer in recent times, people may feel less safe thanks to a 24 hour news cycle making incidents of crime more visible, driving a perception of increased danger.” - https://soniatheroux...ce-dc65248e42c1

The TC:

An increase in crime in ­Victoria’s downtown has hit struggling businesses harder amid the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in lost revenue for many.
“Businesses are literally just hanging on. A broken window with a $1,000 deductible, that could put a business over the edge,” said Jeff Bray, executive director of the Downtown Victoria Business Association.

Victoria police statistics show calls to police for crimes such as mischief, breaking and entering, weapons offences, robbery and vehicle theft are up in the downtown core in the first seven months of 2020 compared with the same period last year.

Calls reporting break and enters have nearly doubled, up from 162 in 2019 to 311 this year. Calls related to weapons offences have increased from 96 in 2019 to 154 in 2020.

For many types of criminal activity, calls are down from the same period in 2019. They include shoplifting, drugs-related offences, panhandling and theft, which is down by 233 calls.

However, Bray said many businesses were experiencing an increase in shoplifting and break-and-enters even before COVID-19 and it has escalated further during the pandemic, but not every incident is reported to police. - https://www.timescol...sses-1.24190614

[Victoria Watcher]

Who is being honest and sincere?

Local political organizer:

“The Victoria Police Department’s own crime data tells a different story than they are endeavouring to convey anecdotally, and Statistics Canada shows a marked decrease in crime rates in the past decade. However, studies show that while we have been objectively safer in recent times, people may feel less safe thanks to a 24 hour news cycle making incidents of crime more visible, driving a perception of increased danger.” - https://soniatheroux...ce-dc65248e42c1

 

 

There’s a difference between a private member of the public engaging in this type of rhetoric versus a publicly-funded institution, like the Victoria Police Department, leveraging a sizable communications budget to drive perception. Indeed, they issued over 500 press releases in 2020— up from 186 in 2019.

 

 

there is also two ways to look at the above, no?

 

if in 2019 there were only 186 crimes worthy of a press release, but in 2020 there were 500+, should they not comment on them?  should they cap press releases at 186 yearly - regardless of crime levels?

 

The Victoria Police Department’s own crime data tells a different story than they are endeavouring to convey anecdotally, and Statistics Canada shows a marked decrease in crime rates in the past decade.

 

 

we are generally not talking about the last decade.  we are talking about the last 2-3 years.  or even the past year.

 

and i'm sure the VicPD has released figures showing the increase in crimes.  particularly near problem areas.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 19 March 2021 - 11:20 AM.

[Mike K.]

The timelines are drawn out to wherever they may be most effective for the slant. The issue is this: crime HAD been falling since 2010, then sharply began to rise. Crime had also been falling relative to 2005 and 2015.

[pennymurphy2000]

BC Housing has purchased 865 Catherine Street. More info found here

 

https://vancouverisl...3RpOcHouy-j8NtQ

[spanky123]

BC Housing has purchased 865 Catherine Street. More info found here

 

 

So that means everything from Dockside over to Vic West Elementary will become a no-go zone?

 

They are going to have that space converted over to a homeless shelter in 40 days? Can you even get permits through Victoria that quickly?

Edited by spanky123, 19 March 2021 - 12:25 PM.

[Victoria Watcher]

temporary use, people on cots/pods, 24/7 security.  it can be done easily.  it would be different if it was a place where everyone was sleeping with no security.

[Sparky]

The neighbours will be thrilled.

[Nparker]

BC Housing has purchased 865 Catherine Street....

[Victoria Watcher]

was that a food store at one time?

 

food palace or food circus or something?

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 19 March 2021 - 12:46 PM.

[Jacques Cadé]

I think it was an independent supermarket a long time ago. In the late '90s it was a video-rental store. More recently it was a Taoist Tai Chi centre. There's a nice business called the Market Garden across the street, where I will make a point of shopping over the next couple of months, because they're going to need all the help they can get.

Edited by Jacques Cadé, 19 March 2021 - 01:12 PM.

[Mike K.]

The building currently houses a day centre for persons with learning disabilities. I guess they’ll have to find an alternate location, or already have.

[aastra]

 

There’s a difference between a private member of the public engaging in this type of rhetoric versus a publicly-funded institution, like the Victoria Police Department, leveraging a sizable communications budget to drive PERCEPTION.

 

This manipulative game of Ping-Pong™ has been going on for many decades. They (politicians, police chiefs, and media outlets) will claim crime is excessive & appalling one moment, but phantasmal & all about personal perception the next moment (sometimes in the very same news item they will spin it both ways).

 

Remember that time you were mugged and robbed on your familiar neighbourhood street in Victoria? Well, you distorted it in your imagination to seem like an unpleasant experience, because of that dramatized mugging you saw in a Hollywood movie the night before. Criminal victimization doesn't need to seem so unpleasant. Try changing your attitude about it. Learn to like it. Were you really victimized? Maybe it never even happened. Maybe you just imagined it.

 

Instead of caring so much about the criminal victimization that you personally experienced or that you personally witnessed in your own community, try obsessing about the incident of criminal victimization that's currently dominating the international mainstream news cycle, even though it happened a few thousand miles away and involved total strangers (if it even really happened at all).

 

Not only is this practice the dictionary definition of gaslighting, but it also involves the exact same scripted lines year after year, generation after generation. The time frames are long, and yet the same bizarre & illogical framing of the issues persists almost word for word. They're daring people to notice, but most people refuse to notice. Any mature & media-literate person will take ALL discussion about crime stats, police budgets, etc. with a truckload of salt. The political framing of these issues has been 100% cartoonish nonsense pretty much from day one.

 

Suffice it to say, crime is always going to exist and legitimate (non-politicized) policing is always going to be necessary. It's ludicrous that this spin about perceptions, budgets, definitions, and the categorization and re-categorization of crime data should dominate the conversation for so many decades. Morons and idiots can yap about it, I'm not denying them that right. But what about the rest of us? Take the nonsense politics out of policing and it would become more like firefighting. Their responsibilities would be much more clear, their strengths and shortcomings would be much more obvious and non-debatable. Things have become so murky and ridiculous only because we've stirred so much political toilet water into the mix.

 

 

Victoria News
April 29, 2021

Why many Victoria residents may perceive an increase in crime

What contributes to people’s perception of crime?

In Victoria, particularly in the last year and particularly on social media, it is common following a criminal incident to see discussion around an increased feeling of lack of safety or a sense that crime is getting worse. Posts about not feeling safe walking through parks or things having been better “when I was growing up” are frequent.

Yet, crime rates in the Victoria Police Department’s district of Victoria and Esquimalt have remained fairly consistent over the last decade, and are significantly lower than they were two decades ago...

So, why is it then that many people perceive an increase in crime?

Three possible answers are a change in police communications, the echo chamber of social media and the unique circumstances the pandemic has thrust upon people.

Up until about 10 years ago, police – and most organizations – relied on media to get their messages out. Police would fax incidents to newsrooms and it would be up to journalists to decide whether it was in the public interest to know about it and if it should be investigated further...

(aastra says: scripted template stories in local news media don't get much more obvious than this one. How peculiar, that "perception of crime" would always be wrong -- decade after decade -- and that the misperception would always rest on the mistaken belief that there might actually be more crime than officially documented or reported. Today we say it's because of the plague or social media; yesterday we said it was because Victorians weren't street-smart about the streets of Victoria; the day before we said it was because of crime dramas on US television... there's always an explanation and the newest explanations are always gradually more ridiculous than the prior ones.)

 

--

 

 

Times-Colonist
Jan 28, 2015

Social problems, not crime, top concerns

 

...the findings of a Victoria police survey: business owners' biggest concerns are social issues, rather than crime.

Homelessness was a major concern for 75 per cent of the 136 business owners surveyed, followed by drugs and panhandling (71 per cent), mental health (52 per cent), break-and-enters (32 per cent) and loitering (29 per cent).

...Victoria Police Chief Frank Elsner pointed out that only two of the concerns -- drugs and break-ins -- are crimes. The rest "are not criminal offences," he said. "Those are not something we can put a law-enforcement lens on."

He said police officers need to work closely with social agencies to ensure there's a partnership in dealing with social disorder in a way that helps those who are marginalized as well as business owners.

More than half of the survey respondents felt that crime had either decreased or stayed the same, which is in line with local and national trends that crime is steadily decreasing. At the same time, 62 per cent said they had been the victim of a crime in the past five years. Elsner said that doesn't reflect Victoria police's crime statistics and suggested some people might have the PERCEPTION they have been victimized after a scary encounter.

 

--

 

Times-Colonist
March 14, 2008

Victoria is also ranked with the top 10 per cent of American cities for break-and-enter rates.

Victoria police spokesman Sgt. Grant Hamilton estimates the city is hit with about 30 property crimes a day -- 10,000 are investigated a year.

"Everyone's had their car broken into, myself included," Hamilton said.

Benedikt Fischer, a criminologist at the University of Victoria, who also studies addiction and mental health, warns people should take the statistics with a grain of salt, noting great discrepancies in the number of crimes reported in Canadian cities -- for example, a sheltered Victorian might be more likely than a street-savvy Torontonian to report a minor property crime.

  (aastra says: I'm not sure there's much logic behind the premise that Victorians aren't particularly street-savvy about... the streets of Victoria.)

However, Victoria's crime rate has a much dirtier little secret than rampant drug use, Fischer said. Victoria's growing income gap between rich and poor is another huge problem.

"Even though Victoria might seem nice and quaint," Fischer said, research shows discrepancies in income produce high levels of crime.

"Even though Victoria has a lot of people who are well off and established, and not your typical criminal population, there is a marginalized and disenfranchised population -- a substantial one proportionally -- and that together with a quite sizable drug user and mental health problem population ... obviously generates a lot of property crime," Fischer said.

  (aastra summarizes: the criminal victimization you're experiencing isn't as real as you think it is. You're exaggerating it in your mind. However, the crime itself is VERY real, if you frame it in a way that's palatable to contemporary academic political delusions. So the crime is both real and not real at the same time, depending on your politics.)

 

--

 

 

Times-Colonist
February 9, 2003

 

Give our regards to Broad Street Series: The Red Zone

As Stuart Clarke touted the benefits of street revitalization, a greasy-haired young man with khaki pants and a weathered overcoat bolted from his store with $1,000 in merchandise. Clarke had been talking about how improvements to Broad Street had chased away some of the street people from around Robinson's Outdoor Store and neighbouring shops.

The police and city officials acknowledge problems with addiction and homelessness and have developed a downtown action plan that also involves health officials.

Most say Victoria has one of the safest downtowns in North America. Others say the street population problems are chasing away tourists and shoppers.

Still others suggest it is all about PERCEPTION.

Clarke and some of his staff easily caught up with the thief, recovering four expensive waterproof jackets. However, they had no interest in holding him for police.

  (aastra says: The theft of expensive jackets is all about perception.)

Apart from their major concern being getting the jackets back, they feared that the man could have been violent, perhaps even pulling a dirty needle on them.

And, they said, no one wants to miss a day's work to sit in court only to have the thief get a slap on the wrist.

  (aastra says: Missing a day's work is all about perception.)

 

--

 

 

The Vancouver Sun
November 28, 1991

 

Beggars, teens scare shoppers from core
 

Profane street kids and persistent panhandlers are driving Victoria shoppers away from the downtown area and into suburban malls.

That's the finding of a recent survey of 699 Victoria-area shoppers commissioned by the Victoria Business Improvement Association...

...the survey showed only a third of respondents regularly shop downtown. More than half said they shop at one of Victoria's three out- lying malls - Hillside, Mayfair and Tillicum.

Respondents criticized downtown Victoria for lacking the cleanliness, convenience and free parking of the malls. They also expressed concern for their personal safety in the city core.

Eighty-eight per cent of respondents said increased police presence should be part of any downtown revitalization efforts.

Despite consumer fears, both LeGros and Victoria police Insp. Brian Hayes said few crimes are actually committed against shoppers walking on streets.

But knots of lippy teenagers, rambunctious skateboarders, tenacious beggars and occasional day-shift prostitutes create an unsettling image - especially for seniors

"Some groups of young people pose a PERCEIVED threat to older shoppers. They often block sidewalks and shout obscenities."

Occasionally pedestrians are knocked down by "unapologetic" skateboarders...

  (aastra says: Groups of people -- including some individuals who have lengthy criminal histories -- were blocking your way, shouting obscenities at you, and knocking you to the ground... and in your twisted & paranoid imagination you somehow perceived that behaviour as being threatening? Cuckoo.)

Edited by aastra, 03 May 2021 - 03:38 PM.

[JimV]

...There's a nice business called the Market Garden across the street, where I will make a point of shopping over the next couple of months, because they're going to need all the help they can get.

I expect the new residents will shop there too.  The only difference is that you pay for your purchases.

[JimV]

Just for the record, crime rates are notoriously malleable.  They depend on the incidence of reporting, enforcement priorities, recording policy, statutory changes  and various other factors.  The only highly reliable crime statistic is homicide.  Every one is investigated (and about 75% of them cleared.)  Your own personal perception of the crime problem is probably as good a measure as any.

[Mike K.]

Could this involve Ms Brett?

Traffic Disruptions Anticipated Downtown During Saturday Protest

Victoria, BC – Officers are anticipating traffic disruptions in downtown Victoria tomorrow during a planned protest and march.
On Saturday, March 20th a protest is planned for the area of Centennial Square. A large number of people are planning to gather for a rally, speeches, and a march downtown. This event will occur from approximately 12 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. There will be traffic disruptions. VicPD officers will be on site to ensure everyone’s safety.

The Public Health Officer recognizes the Charter right to peaceful assembly and is not prohibiting outdoor assemblies for the purpose of communicating on a matter of public interest, provided steps are being taken to limit the risk of transmission of COVID-19.

The best way to keep up-to-date on these events is to follow our Twitter account https://twitter.com/vicpdcanada.

[spanky123]

^ Although of course outdoor assemblies for the purpose of religion are still banned.

[Jacques Cadé]

Could this involve Ms Brett?

 

Nope, COVID deniers: https://allevents.in...00020805476134#
 

Security news: https://www.garda.co...enters-march-20

Edited by Jacques Cadé, 19 March 2021 - 02:41 PM.