Public safety comes from curbing violence, not just reacting to it
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Toronto Mayor John Tory is recommending $48 million to better respond to emergencies after they have occurred. Maybe it is time to get serious about preventing those emergencies in the first place by investing $48 million in proactive and proven solutions.
Toronto has gradually increased police budgets over the last two decades. In major part, salaries for police officers have grown significantly more than inflation. What is clear for Toronto (and even clearer for U.S. cities like Chicago) is that hiring more police or paying them more has little to do with whether property or violent crime goes up or down. Increasing the police budget without tackling the causes of crime has left Toronto without enough officers to respond to a growth in 911 calls requesting police response.
Tory claims that his top priority is to reduce crime, but his proposed increase to the police budget is about responding to rising levels of violent crime rather than making Toronto safer by reducing it.
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