WE WORRY TOO MUCH ABOUT CRIME, BUT SECRECY NO ANSWER

Having experienced the challenge many times of trying to squeeze
information out of the RCMP in the course of chasing a news story,
can't imagine how much tougher the task will get if B.C.'s Mounties
take the advice of their communications department and clam up further.

People in B.C. are much more fearful of being a victim of crime than
they need to be, the department found in an internal report last year,
made public this week after the Vancouver Sun got hold of a copy. The
report speculates that the problem might be the volume of crime
stories in the media.

If RCMP media officers weren't quite so open and prompt in their
dealings with the media, the report wonders, is it possible the media
would fixate less on crime and people would calm down a little?
Two-thirds of the British Columbians surveyed as part of the report
said they were fearful of being a crime victim sometime in the next
year.

Not even close to that many actually will be. These days, the fear of
crime is considerably more prevalent than crime itself, the report
notes.

I can see how you might conclude that the media had something to do
with that. A month-long survey of undisclosed B.C. newspapers done as
part of the report found that 67 per cent of all front-page stories in
that period were about crime. While it's hard to know what to make of
that finding -- what's the "right" amount of crime news, anyway? --
it's still a significant statistic.

I wouldn't want to see RCMP restricting crime information in an
attempt to change that, however. This is our province. These are the
police officers we pay. We have a right to know what's going on.

Beyond that, the media would simply dig up other sources to fill the
void if RCMP became more reticent -- sources that would almost
certainly be less accurate, more speculative and even more likely to
frighten the uninformed reader or viewer.

Crime reporting without access to accurate police information is truly
a scary prospect.

But that's not to cast aspersions on the main point of the report. The
public perception of the likelihood of being a crime victim is
seriously out of whack with the reality. We are scaring ourselves well
beyond what's actually necessary for our safety.

The front pages of B.C.'s newspapers certainly aren't the only places
where crime and violence take up a disproportionate amount of space.
Popular TV series these days feature epic levels of violence and crime
and unnecessarily grisly images are aired at completely inappropriate
times of day.

Even cooking and home reno shows are filled with menace.

News of wars pours into our homes every day as well. We need to know
about them -- in this global age, even the most distant wars hit home
in one way or another.

But we also need to know what to do about it, rather than simply be
left to grow ever more fearful. And the media have to assume some
responsibility for that. Context needs to be put into stories of crime
and conflict, to help us understand the reasons, the patterns and the
genuine risks to our communities.

Police themselves, however -- and politicians -- also have to answer
for the culture of fear we find ourselves in.

Crime is a powerful political tool that both groups have used as
needed to scare voters into doing what they want.

Perhaps the cause at hand is more money for the police department, or
the election of a law-and-order man. Convince the public to be very
afraid, and all of a sudden the voters are on your side.

But when interest groups and politicians scare up voters by conjuring
the spectre of crime, the level of public anxiety increases.

What's the truth of the matter? According to the RCMP report, British
Columbians have a 14 per cent chance of being burgled in the next two
years.

Five per cent will be assaulted.

Those are still striking numbers, of no comfort to the people who do
end up the victims of crime. But it's heartening news for the 85 to 95
per cent of us who aren't affected in a typical year.

We still live in a country where most of us do not routinely
experience crime. If only we could allow ourselves to believe that.

The information must continue to flow from our police departments to
the media.

As tempting as it might be for the RCMP to believe that too much
information is the primary problem in terms of perception of public
safety, the issue is much more complex than that.

But maybe the leaked police report will finally get us talking about
why we're more worried than we need to be, and what we can do about
it.

This old world has troubles enough without us imagining it any worse.