GET TOUGH ON CRIME

This past weekend at least four people were killed by criminals in Toronto
- -- including a tourist from St. Lucia who was stabbed to death when she
walked in on a robbery at a travel agency. The killings are part of a
disturbing trend. Last year, gun crime in Canada's largest city surged by
nearly 15%. Home invasions increased by 57%. Overall, violent crime in
Toronto is up 5% since 1999, while in the rest of the country it has fallen
more than 8%.

The major underlying problem seems clear enough: Toronto has witnessed
significantly increased activity from ethnic gangs fighting
drug-trafficking turf wars with smuggled handguns. Nearly half of the
city's 65 murders in 2003 -- and nearly all of its 31 firearms murders --
were gang-related. Eighty-four per cent of those arrested for gun crimes
are career criminals; more than half are in violation of parole for some
earlier crime. And nearly three-quarters of guns confiscated at crime
scenes have never been registered. Most have been snuck over the border
from the United States. So much for the alleged life-saving benefits of our
$1-billion-plus gun registry.

Toronto's police are doing the best they can to stop this epidemic. But
their efforts are being undermined by a porous legal system. In general,
sentences are short and parole conditions lenient. Police also complain
that search warrants are increasingly difficult to come by and forensics
labs are too busy for timely tests.

The solution seems as clear as the problem: Beef up law enforcement,
especially against gangs and illegal guns, and encourage Ottawa to stiffen
parole and sentencing laws. But instead, Toronto's new leftist Mayor, David
Miller, this week unveiled a "community safety plan" that is nothing but a
rehash of tired old social engineering theories of the '70s and '80s.

His nine-point plan purports to attack the alleged "root causes" of crime
- -- poverty, unemployment and despair. Instead of giving Toronto police the
go-ahead to round up known criminals, drug peddlers and gunrunners, Mr.
Miller wants more recreational programs in high-crime neighbourhoods,
make-work projects for troubled youth, community counsellors, skills
training and public service campaigns to discourage gang membership and gun
use. He is planning to strike an advisory panel to oversee his initiative.
Panellists will include activist judges, members of Toronto's notoriously
indulgent school boards, community activists and social workers -- but not
Julian Fantino, Toronto's no-nonsense police chief, nor indeed anyone from
the police.

Mr. Miller must be about the last big-city mayor in North America who still
buys into this group-hug approach to crime reduction. Nearly every large
U.S. city has already tried and abandoned this strategy. Instead, they now
favour a program of aggressive crackdowns on all offences, petty and major
both -- an approach that has consistently been found to net repeat
offenders and lower street crime.

The failure of the root-causes theory can still be seen in those American
cities such as Washington, D.C., Chicago and Detroit. The same is true in
Europe, where the 1990s brought an enormous increase in murders, major
assaults, robberies, burglaries, car thefts and other crimes. Indeed,
thanks to its get-tough approach of the past decade, America now has the
second-lowest per-capita rate of violent crime in the G7, ahead of only Japan.

In the interests of being politically correct, Mr. Miller is ready to set
Toronto on precisely the wrong path. He needs to reconsider before his
inner city neighbourhoods go the way of the hollowed-out, decaying shells
of the U.S. cities that trod this road before him.