Car-window smashing in Hamilton: A microcosm of archaic approaches to community problem solving
At the risk of sounding like a familiar graphic t-shirt or hoodie: Hamilton is my home. I moved to the city in 2017, drawn to the blackened, flaming chimneys that straddle Nikola Tesla Boulevard, and line the shore of the harbour. Though the sight of the factories touched a deep-seated awe for human ingenuity and industry, I ended up moving downtown on the border between the Kirkendall and Durand neighbourhoods. I now live beside an ungodly-cheap pizza shop/convenience store, on a former one-way street where motorcycles and cars with holes in their mufflers rip up the winding road to the top of the escarpment.
When people ask me where I live, I tell them, and typically receive conciliatory words or looks. I know this is an innocent joke at Hamilton’s expense, but there is really nothing to feel sorry about. Hamilton is a brilliant city, home to many kind and hardworking people, unfixed potholes, and the Niagara escarpment, which separates downtown from the mountain neighbourhoods. The city has lagged a bit in the development that has spread across the GTA, so much of the old architecture has remained. Hamilton, like all cities in Canada, has many of the same issues as Toronto. The city has failed to take responsibility or address the widespread suffering of those experiencing homelessness and addiction; the housing and rental markets have grown unhinged; and development rages on, without so much as a cursory thought to appropriate urban planning.
As I said, I live on the border between Kirkendall and Durand: Two of the most affluent neighbourhoods in the downtown core. Anyone who spends any amount of time in the city cannot possibly ignore the massive wealth inequality in these neighbourhoods. I once said, to a friend’s great amusement, that I lived on the precipice between affluence and poverty. On one side of the street are towering subsidised apartment buildings, left to fall apart for want of funding or compassion. On the other side are century homes, priced higher than they are worth, with manicured gardens and interlocking stone patios. Despite this divide, the neighbourhood is a great place to live. My neighbours are kind and quick to strike up a conversation while waiting at the crosswalk in front of my house.
However, as I have seen in the last month, it does not take a catastrophe for the cordiality to fall apart. Since the New Year, there has been a drastic increase in the number of vehicle break-ins in my neighbourhood, and residents are angry. I am a member of a neighbourhood Facebook page which has recently turned into an inventory for pictures of smashed car windows accompanied by furious captions and comments. Many residents blame the police for scarce patrols, others blame the justice system for lax penalties, and some focus on an imagined individual of such-and-such socioeconomic status who must be the culprit. I cannot help but think that all these comments are focusing on the wrong thing. But I have never had my car window broken, so maybe it is me that is missing something. Nevertheless, the group underwent a strange metamorphosis in the past month, from posting community events and recommendations, to proposing and debating the formation of a late-night vigilante patrol.
Even prior to these discussions, homeowners would frequently post ring-camera pictures of individuals standing on their porch, alleging that they had tried to enter the house, or that they had recognized as having previously stolen an Amazon package. On their face, these are simply warnings to lock your doors. Turning to the comments though, one finds a mess of conversation from my neighbours, recommending the utility of a baseball bat, or bragging about the viciousness of their dog. Again: It is easy to say these things in jest online. But these people are my neighbours, and so are those who find themselves on another’s porch on any given night for any given reason. Both groups live in the same neighbourhood and rely on the same community services. The only difference is a tendency for those with property rights to vilify those without.
The thread that initially proposed the vigilante patrol has since been deleted, and for good reason, in my opinion. While innocuous on the surface, the theme of hostility mentioned above cannot be separated from any discourse of community protection that the patrol tried to hide behind. The patrol was just another form of policing. Interestingly, many who supported the patrol simultaneously voiced their anger with the Hamilton police’s inadequate handling of the issue. How can they not see the absurdity of their own idea? Are they simply blinded by anger?
As I have said, those proposing the patrol, and those that the patrol would inevitably target, are my neighbours. We all have needs and wants, personally and for the community at large. Again, I think some of my neighbours are missing the point. I take it as a fact that some needs are more important than others. The needs of adequate shelter and food trump needs for greater police protection of property. If a desire for a community patrol is tied to a belief that police methodology is inadequate, why would more vigilante policing help? Is it because the public can inflict harsher de facto punishment than the state? Is it because the public is not as concerned as the police are about remedying their blood-stained reputation?
I will confess that I do not know, and I do not mean to belittle the concerns of anyone in my community. It is not pleasant to have something of yours stolen or damaged, but in thinking about a solution to the problem, I recommend that my neighbours try to be creative. Instead of focusing your anger at those who you think have a proclivity for theft and property damage, try thinking about why someone might do those things, and how to solve the problem for good.
Many noble Hamiltonians and Torontonians are resisting large budget increases to their police forces, likely to the dismay of some of my neighbours driving around with garbage bags taped to their car windows. Something I have seen a lot of in these discussions is an unwillingness to think beyond the issue. Crime is not only a trend that increases or decreases. There are also economic, social, and psychological contexts to be considered. Many of my neighbours see the issue and immediately reach for force as the archaic and ready-made option for stomping down an upward trend in crime. At best, this will only drive the offenders—whoever they are, they could be bored teenagers for all we know—into other neighbourhoods, where another Facebook group will float the idea of a vigilante patrol, and on and on and on…
Issues like these are incredibly complex; they require you to take a long walk along the fence-line, looking both inwards and outwards. Perhaps the reason the lake keeps getting polluted is not because there is a malicious ill-doer hiding in your woodlot. Maybe someone is dropping nasty things into the river upstream, perhaps the state allows them to do so. The same is somewhat true here, and we should not be looking for a scapegoat, or acting as if there is one to be found every time there is an increase in property crime. Look around instead: There may be other things at play here. Maybe the police shouldn’t receive a budget increase. Maybe the city should invest in those suffering from homelessness instead of systematically leaving them without shelter during severe cold-weather warnings. Maybe we ought to rethink how we can realistically address these issues instead of barricading ourselves inside our homes with a baseball bat behind the door and a vicious shih tzu at the end of a leather leash.
To my neighbours and classmates, I urge you to take time when considering issues like these. You are not always the only victim in the situation, regardless of how angry you might feel when someone damages your property. People are not as malicious as you presume them to be, problems are not always so simple to solve. Sometimes, they require a novel approach. Perhaps I am naïve or a fool, but I firmly believe that approaching community problems with brute force and ignorance cannot lead to durable solutions. At the very least, take a moment to think before charging right at the issue. For when you make contact, you may succeed in knocking it back a few feet, but it might rebound with even greater force.