COST OF CRIME MAKES US VICTIMS OVER AND OVER AGAIN HERE IN B.C.

EDITOR, THE TIMES:

Re: Rafe Arnott's story Stats reflect cops make dent in crime, Page
1, Tuesday's edition of the Abbotsford-Mission Times:

Rick Lucy, deputy chief of Abbotsford Police Department, must be
living in a vacuumed bubble to make this statement.

He is ignoring the fact that the legal Insite stations, where the
druggies get all their free drugs and free needles, no longer need to
break into vehicles and homes to receive enough money to buy their drugs.

Plus, the fact all those addicted on these drugs, even from
surrounding areas including Abbotsford, are now living in the
Vancouver downtown areas, where they are getting their drugs, needles
and food, free of charge.

Lucy forgets to mention the fact that now we have the gang members
killing one another off, and in so doing heightens the severity of the crimes.

Don't take me wrong - we need the police to do what they are doing,
but don't take credit for someone else's accomplishments, if that's
what you can call it.

Personally, I believe catering to the drug scum brought about by
former Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan is a totally bad idea, for all it
has really done is attract the scum druggies from across the rest of
the country and even from the U.S. It has turned Vancouver into the
Drug Capital of Canada - definitely nothing to brag about.

No sane individual has any desire to even enter or walk around the
Downtown Eastside area. Why do you think Vancouver needs to hire more
cops to control this downtown area?

Our real problem lies within the justice system. Anytime these
out-of-control druggies - and even ordinary criminals - are processed
through the system, and incarcerated, it cost us taxpayers a fortune,
making all of us victims of their crimes, instead of putting all this
expense on the lawbreaker or even on their immediate family members,
even if properties need to be confiscated.

Why should we, the taxpayers, pay for a crime we never committed?

Where is the justice in this charge? The problem is the fact that our
justice system has created an industry for itself at the expense of
us, the overtaxed public.

R.A. Mueller,

Abbotsford