NEED FOR SAFER STREETS KNOWS NO BOUNDARIES

Although they feel safer here than in their countries of origin,
recent immigrants fear crime in Canada is increasing, and they're
particularly alarmed about youth violence, guns and drugs.

They also believe sentencing is too lenient, according to focus group
surveys done for the federal Justice Department.

The focus sessions showed that among recently arrived ethnic
populations, "all feel that the nature of crime is shifting to more
gun and violent crime, committed by younger people," concluded the
Antima Research Group, which conducted six meetings with groups in
Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver in 2007.

Youth crime particularly worried these new Canadians, in part because
many are very strict with their children and think lack of discipline
in other families is linked to crime.

"While they do not simplistically think that leniency toward children
in Canada causes youth crime, they do sincerely feel that it is a
contributing factor," says the Antima study.

EASY TO BUY A GUN

Recent immigrants are also worried about how comparatively easy it is
to obtain a gun in Canada compared to their home countries.

"One particular quote -- 'I can buy a gun at Wal-Mart' -- is very
illustrative of participants' concerns ... all groups perceive the
prevalence of gun crime and gun violence to be higher in Canada and
getting worse (if no corrective policy or enforcement measures are
taken)."

Many participants admitted they weren't well informed on crime trends.
In fact, recent Statistics Canada figures show the overall rate of
violent crime with guns has been stable for several years. The
firearms-related homicide rate for 2006 was 0.6 per 100,000 whereas
three decades ago it was almost double that. The use of guns by young
offenders has been increasing, however.

According to the focus-group study, new Chinese-Canadians were
particularly alarmed about drugs in this country.

"To these participants, the (perceived) prevalence of drugs appears
completely unthinkable, as their frame of reference in China is a
zero-tolerance drug policy with the death penalty even for possession
of a certain amount," the study noted.