However, I think that your suggestion of giving some of the money saved from releasing the 30,000 inmates to crime prevention programs might work. It is a good idea, and I’d be interested to look at a study that examines how much money it would take to make a significant dent in crime through prevention alone. Assuming it is less than the cost of keeping 30,000 inmates, it seems like it would be worth giving a shot.

Keep up the good work!

Mr. Waller,
I looked you up because I saw you on a recent airing of “The Agenda”. I was impressed with what you said at the time, but must confess that, having read what you’ve written &/or chosen to publish here on your site, that I have now changed my mind and am sorely dissappointed.

I’m a woman who experienced years of violence as a child but no-one ever seems to speak up to change things on my behalf: I had my head held under water repeatedly, shocked with a cattle prod, forced to eat my own vomit, etc., etc… And by now it will have dawned on you why I wrote that I am disappointed in what you’ve chosen to publish, and why I say that no-one ever speaks for me. Because as a criminologist you already know (or should know) that my abuser was a woman, most probably my mother. And you would be correct.

As a criminologist you would also know (or should) that statistically children are in far more danger from mothers than fathers. And that female perpetration of crime is severly under-reported and under-prosecuted. You would know, or should, that the majority of rapists and serial killers of women were themselves (most of them) abused in their childhood by women and frequently trained by those women to become rapists (as did my mother attempt to ‘train’ my brothers and my father – luckily for me she got no takers). As often as not, those rapists and sexual serial killers were sexually abused or psychologically terrorized by women, a topic no-one – especially in your profession – seems to have either the courage or integrity to talk about. And you would also know that, statistically, men and boys are just as likely to experience violence as women and girls – something else we don’t ever seem to be concerned enough to talk about.

But what galls me the most is when feminist organisations, and their misguided supporters such as yourself, use abused children as “bait” for sympathy and further funding, but trickle down NONE of that funding or services to those same abused children – particularly when those children are predominantly abused by those poor “victimized” mothers.

When it comes to DV, heck let’s all forget about science and objectivity, and getting to the real root of it. Let’s never talk about how the REAL cycle of violence has representatives of all genders in every part of that wheel: victims, perpetrators, witnessess, bystanders, etc…

When it comes to feminist funded DV research, publications, etc… it’s all ideology all the time. 7/24 ‘spin’.

Shame is a very big part of the real root of crime (not all crime, I’ll admit). But since feminist DV efforts have no shame whatsoever about shaming all men as a gender (hmmm, I have to wonder why as a man you don’t speak up about that – perhaps because you know what side of the bread your funding is on?!), perhaps we should pass more of that shame around.

Shame on you.

In closing, unless your efforts to reduce violence against women also help this girl (or boys in her position):
http://female-offenders.com/Safehouse/2011/03/flotsam-and-jetsam.html
or this girl:
http://www.southshorenow.ca/karissa/index.php
or this one:
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/07/16/babara-kay-the-multicultural-approach-to-justice/#ixzz0tt12M2Px
or this one:
http://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/article/864081–dimanno-chilling-video-displays-a-mother-s-rage
… they’re not worth the paper they’re printed on.

I’m just saying…

You ask if criminal justice scientists at a Toronto conference will stop crime.The fact they believe their “practice” approaches science raises serious questions about the altitude of their headspace. As one of those who pretends this science is real, I ask this myself whenever I do prevention work.

Same with criminologists. As you know, from thousands of North American criminologists only a tiny fraction escape from the window-less rooms of abstract theory to write, research, and actually try to prevent crime in the field.

For example in my SafeGrowth blog I recently wrote about a Vancouver police report on chronic offenders, their impact on community safety, and what can be done to prevent crime. Of 30 studies in the Vancouver report all but 4 were American. And two of those were graduate student theses.

How can we hope to prevent crime if local criminologists don’t get outside into the field, and begin working along-side those residents who suffer it? Clearly, even in Canada I think we are missing the boreal forest for the proverbial beetle-infested trees.

Your prevention work is a good example of how we can all do better.

Greg Saville