As part of his continued effort to justify the use of the moniker "Nofuna Scotia" the HRM chief of police has recently blamed bars and alcohol for high crime rate in Halifax.
As the Metro story puts it:
HRM drinks too much and Halifax Regional Police Chief Frank Beazley says he has the assault statistics to prove it.
He told the municipality’s police commission on Monday there’s way too much easy access to liquor in this town. Many people sit at home and drink heavily before going out late to the bar and pounding drinks until 3 a.m.
“If I could take the alcohol out of this, I could plummet the number of assaults in HRM,” he said.
Beazley added that several of the 3,202 assaults last year involved people getting drunk and going home to beat a family member.
The access, hours the bars are open and the density of liquor establishments downtown combine to cause real problems.
“Why do we need that many bars in that one area of the community that require so many resources to police it?”While I am sure it is the case that some number of Halifax's crimes were committed by people who had recently been drinking in bars, do we know that access to alcohol really lead to all that many crimes - or do criminals just happen to also be drinkers? Do other communities with bar districts face similar problems? If not, why not?
And is the chief of police really suggesting that some number of legally operated small businesses be closed or have their capacity to collect revenue severely restricted? Might there not be other steps that we can take before this one?
And I am curious if the chief's suggestion that if he "could take the alcohol out of this, I could plummet the number of assaults in HRM" is accurate. An interesting story from the Guardian today seems to suggest that people will go to great lengths to secure intoxicating substances in the face of prohibitions. At least in the UK an ever-changing array of legal synthetic drugs seem to be popular at the moment. And of course not much is know about these synthetic drugs and what kind of long-term impact they might have on their imbibers. And should one not think about the risk of encouraging such a development be worth by changing alcohol rules?
Cameron: 26
Neil: 0
1 comment:
Indeed, something must be amiss in Halifax, especially when we consider that approximately 3,199 assaults in Halifax last year did not involve people getting drunk and going home to subsequently beat a family member.
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