Home takeovers

  Mar 19, 2014

 Crime Prevention Ottawa
New campaign on home takeovers

 Crime Prevention Ottawa, together with our community partners, has released a poster and information card to help vulnerable tenants and their neighbours deal with the complex problem of home takeovers.  

A takeover is when a friend, relative or acquaintance takes over a home. They may sleep there, sell drugs, do illegal activities or steal from the tenant. It can happen to anyone, but especially to tenants in vulnerable situations:

People living with a disability or mental illness

People living with addictions

Elderly or otherwise isolated

 This campaign educates tenants about the warning signs and what to do about them.   Download the poster and information card at www.crimepreventionottawa.ca .  You can also order copies of the poster and info card by emailing cpo@ottawa.ca .   Research report, Home Takeovers of Vulnerable Tenants: Perspectives from Ottawa.  http://www.crimepreventionottawa.ca/Media/Content/files/Publications/Neighbourhoods/Home%20Takeovers%20of%20Vulnerable%20Tenants%20-%20final.pdf

 TED Talks – Daniel Reisel   
The neuroscience of restorative justice 

Instead of warehousing these criminals, shouldn’t we be using what we know about the brain to help them rehabilitate?  Reisel asks:  If the brain can grow new neural pathways after an injury … could we help the brain re-grow morality? He focuses on moral behaviour and capacity for empathy.  (A 15 minute video)    https://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_reisel_the_neuroscience_of_restorative_justice

 CBC News
Cyberbullying survey finds lines blur between bullies, victims

 For some time now, school boards and provinces as well as the federal government have been looking to new regulations / laws to curb cyberbullying.  The rush to law has ignored the difficult of an effective working definition of what constitutes bullying.  MediaSmarts surveyed over 5400 students across Canada.  “Most often students said they were mean or cruel online as a joke or because someone had been mean to them or a friend of theirs. Most of the cyberbullying reported is name-calling.  “A lot of the time we’re looking at the same young people acting by turns bully, victim, witness and we know that by the motivation,” said Matthew Johnson, director of education for MediaSmarts.  http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/cyberbullying-survey-finds-lines-blur-between-bullies-victims-1.2576321   Related article:  Cowichan News Leader – Diane Andrew   Cyber bullying? Time to Let It Die   http://www.cowichannewsleader.com/news/249760441.html 

 Irwin Waller – University of Ottawa
Legislation for Victims Must Include Funding, Effective Pre-Crime Prevention, and Evaluation 

 In anticipation of the national Victims of Crime Week (April 6-12), Waller, a long time advocate for victims, offers an assessment of what the proposed Victims Rights Bill should contain.  Waller offers a number of principles governing such a bill and a list of eight rights that need to be found in such a bill.  http://irvinwaller.org/crime-victims-rights/2013/06/25/1979

 Huffington Post (Canada) – Toula Drimonis.
A “Rape Culture” Tutorial for the Naysayers 

 Rape on university campuses has long been a sort of forbidden topic.  Drimonis does not mince words.  She speaks about a rape culture and insists that the culture includes victim blaming, sexual objectification, and trivializing rape.  Rape culture also means, among a long list of implications, that a person is victimized again and again by the justice and court system.  http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/toula-foscolos/rape-culture-exist_b_4913727.html

 Long Island (N.Y.) Newsday – Kevin Deutsch 
Data analysis helps LI cops predict crime, nip it in bud 

 Policing in Long Island has taken a turn for the better, at least it appears so.  Police have been using the data from past events to forecast and predict the what, where and who of crime with some success.  Looking at a 12% reduction in both property and violent crime, Dt. Sgt Patrick Ryder said:  “These are tools we’ve never had before. Now that they’re here, we can actually predict what’s going to happen and stop it before it does.”   http://www.newsday.com/long-island/data-analysis-helps-li-cops-predict-crime-nip-it-in-bud-1.7421135  

 Partners in Restorative Process (Baltimore, MD) – Albert W. Dzur
Trench Democracy in Criminal Justice: an Interview with Lauren Abramson

Restorative justice builds democracy.  So says Lauren Abramson who is the founder of the Community Conferencing Center in Baltimore.  The goal is to offer through the exercise of restorative justice a model for participatory democracy, a way of involving people in decision making around their community, to engage in    “a highly participatory community-based process for people to transform their conflicts into cooperation, take collective and personal responsibility for action, and improve their quality of life.”   http://www.bostonreview.net/blog/albert-w-dzur-trench-democracy-criminal-justice-interview-lauren-abramson