CRIME. What’s the cause, what’s the solution?

Growing up as a kid in the 1960’s certainly allowed for a lot more freedom than it does today.  Mind you I grew up in the Cariboo, and not the city of Vancouver where I was born.  Even in Vancouver though at that time we still had the freedom of a couple of blocks from home before there would be trouble.  Today’s saying of, “I want to be able to see you when I look out”, still had not been born.

In Williams Lake where my parents moved when I was ten, we had the run of the entire community for miles.  Down to the creek below McKenzie Avenue that ran out of the lake … into the woods next to the old grassy strip that had been the airport to built forts … across the highway to hike up Fox Mountain (really not much more than a hill) … and biking down to the lake for a day of swimming.

There was a lot more freedom in those days – and I guess safety as well.  I don’t recall hearing about cases like Robert Pickton … the bullying and murder of young teens like Reena Virk in 1997 … child pornography on the internet (mind you there was no internet back then) … and about teachers like Robert Noyes who prayed on young children.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying those kind of things didn’t happen.  Even in the Cariboo we had the still unsolved murder of 16 year old Colleen McMillan.  She had last been seen hitch-hiking near Lac La Hache in August of 1974 – a month later her body was found.  What I am saying however is that I don’t believe cases like the ones mentioned above happened to anywhere near the same degree as they do now. 

And so what is the cause – and what is the solution?