By Dr. Neals Chitan

The recent spate of gun violence that has erupted in Toronto, my hometown, is indeed troubling. Over the past month the gun has ruled the streets throwing citizens, city hall and law enforcement alike into a helpless downward spiral of deep concern and helplessness.

The controversial media debate regarding the right and wrong of the wearing of bullet vests by clueless and curious politicians who wish to join the police in patrolling so-called gun ridden communities just for what seems like only political mileage, has made the issue a sharp point of contention city wide. Yet scenes of the Wild West continue unabated across the length and breadth of the city, with an indiscriminate shoot out spree on the streets of “Greektown” on July 22, 2018, leaving two dead and several wounded.

Based on the current trend, if not intercepted, this year’s gun violence crime statistics for the city of Toronto is poised to set an awful history-making and recording-breaking announcement that will tarnish the good repute of the True North. Still our city administrators and police try feverishly to shut the gate after the horse has escaped and running around uncontrolled and aimless.

However, despite their lack of solid methodologies to stem the rising tides of violence, it is important not to put the complete police service in one basket, for I vividly remember Detective Michelle Masters and her team at 31 Division who realized that an alternative to their enforcement-only approach to sustainable crime reduction was critical and requested me to showcase our community empowerment crime reduction series “Project STOP ‘n’ THINK” in May 2015.

Unfortunately, despite the great plans we discussed for community events and programming, three years have gone by without a single engagement, leaving Toronto to reap the awful blessings of “Wild Wild West” living. And so, while my hometown police show no intense interest in teaming up with social interventions, our focus has shifted to the Caribbean where police forces have moved ahead and incorporated social interventions and community empowerment in their policing strategies and are reaping the awesome rewards.

It’s time the Caribbean region which has blessed these first world advanced nations with their brightest minds (even with the Toronto Chief of Police) take the lead again and bestow another blessing in modelling sound methodologies and strategies in the crime reduction fight.

What Toronto needs is a model like that of the St. Christopher and Nevis Police Force where Community Policing partners with relevant social interventions to directly address the social issues creating the hatred, revenge, anger, callousness and disrespect that feed gun violence on a community level.

It’s about time that Toronto and Ontario governmental and NGO funders take stock and stop giving money to fake community organizations that pose as genuine social intervention operations. I have heard of them bribing young at-risk men with a few dollars from their grant money to pretend they are attending a non-existent program so as to satisfy funders who will smile and be happy with fabricated impact, thus continuing the funding and filling the pockets of so-called executive directors and program managers who do absolutely nothing to address the social issues that breed criminality but sit on their behinds and drive expensive cars.

To the powers that be in City Hall and at the High Command of the Toronto Police Services, let me as an International Crime Reduction Specialist who hails from your city advise you that your media covered  community walk throughs and stiff enforcement approach to gun violence will not yield any significant result until you would have engaged meaningful and relevant social prevention and intervention strategies that will speak to the hearts and minds of at-risk youth and criminal minded individuals.

With my community level involvement with young men in the Caribbean who seem to display criminal tendencies, it is heart breaking and sobering to hear from them the burning domestic, personal and systemic issues that have produced the violent and criminal behavior they display. They indeed want to give up their risky lifestyle and become productive men, but they don’t know how. It will take a certain voice with a certain message to reach deep down in their hearts and minds, and I am glad that at Motiv-8 For Change International we have been the experts with the voice and strategy to create the change.

As a Canadian of Caribbean birth, I am proud to be able to help the region address the crime and violence that have been rising, and hereby use this platform to help my Toronto hometown understand the dire need for a well engineered method to sustainably reduce the gun violence that is destroying the safe reputation of our T.O.