The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
By Jonathon Naylor There are two kinds of truths in this world _ absolute truths and basic truths. Absolute truths are those which are 100 per cent ironclad. Drop your keys and 100 times out of 100 they will fall under the force of gravity. Basic truths are those which are not quite 100 per cent, but are pretty darn close. Turn on your faucet and you will almost always get water, unless crews happen to be working on your pipes. In terms of crime, the absolute truth is that there is no such thing as a safe community. But the basic truth is that Flin Flon, despite some climbing crime stats, is a safe community. Each summer, when they come out, The Reminder obtains from a branch of Statistics Canada the previous year's crime figures for Flin Flon and surrounding communities. The Flin Flon numbers are usually down year over year, but that was not the case in 2011. Indeed there were 228 additional violations reported (or detected by police) last year, a rise of nearly one-third compared to 2010. Our community saw more violent incidents, assaults, break-and-enters, property crime, probation breaches, cocaine trafficking and impaired-driving charges, among others. Of course the raw stats raise a number of questions. For one, is it a good thing or a bad thing that there were a dozen more impaired-driving charges? Yes, we would prefer no one ever drink and drive, but we know that is probably unrealistic. So we certainly want to catch as many drunk drivers as possible. Were there more drunk drivers or did we just nab more of them? How about cocaine trafficking, where Mounties laid 13 more charges last year? The stat does not necessarily signal that there is more cocaine in Flin Flon. It just tells us that more perpetrators were, thankfully, busted. I'm not trying to sugarcoat anything. When criminal charges increase by 32 per cent as they have, there should be at least some cause for concern. But context is vital. So, incidentally, is choosing not to be naive about crime. Locking your doors, reporting suspicious activity, avoiding obviously shady situations and places at night _ these are all common-sense steps residents should be taking. It's not the 1950s anymore and this isn't Mayberry. Crimes, and sometimes serious ones, do happen here. That point was reinforced just last week when RCMP in Creighton seized a sizable quantity of ketamine, known as a 'date rape' drug. We can only speculate as to the horrific outcomes had that seizure not occurred. Thankfully, our police forces were on top of their game. Moving forward, our participation as citizens in the law-enforcement process remains crucial to the success of the RCMP in reducing overall crime. That means calling them, or Crime Stoppers, with any pertinent information we have, no matter how insignificant it may seem to us. Remember, solving crime is like a puzzle where every piece counts. Crime may rise again next year, or it may drop off or stay level. But it will never go away, and the absolute truth is that any one of us can become its victim. Local Angle runs Fridays.
