You may have already seen this letter.   It was shared on a community facebook page last weekend and has since been shared dozens of times, collecting hundreds of reactions.    Certainly some disagree with the math presented by the business owner.  Others argue the numbers do not go far enough to consider costs of providing health care, and other services.  

Regardless,  this has the community talking and it underlines the frustration of struggling home owners, and business owners who feel politicians are not moving quick enough to deal with issues related to crime and public safety. The letter has been sent to Alberta Justice Minister and Solicitor General Doug Schweitzer.  We’ve asked the author of the letter to keep us informed on any reaction.  

Printed with the permission of the author.

Like many people in Alberta and Canada I have been a victim of crime, in 2018 I had over $140,000.00 stolen and 2 vehicles damaged (1 destroyed) in 4 separate thefts (of these events insurance would only cover $40,000.00) this had created an extreme hardship on my mental and physical well being as well as the well being of my family. Forcing us to make less than $18,000.00 last year. But not qualifying for supplemented income as I am self employed, however the criminals that are caught in a stolen vehicle with drugs and firearms are free to collect government aid and continue stealing from us!

Since the last major theft on Remembrance Day 2018, I had security cameras installed and I actively monitor these cameras every night, this has led to me contacting the police and personally intervening in the attempted theft of my neighbour’s and my property over 200 times. This is absolutely unacceptable, I have been told by the R.C.M.P to move, buy a different vehicle, and there’s nothing they can do even while handing over hard evidence of parole papers and a criminal’s photograph of him in my vehicle!

These criminals are armed with knives (from lock back to kitchen), machetes, pipe wrenches, firearms, baseball bat’s, needles, and anything else they can find to make a weapon.

Our Laws need to change now!

We could cut major crimes down within 3 months implementing a strict minimum sentence for all repeat offenders, 5 yrs minimum for any drug conviction with intent to sell or crime over $5k, 10 yrs for any assault during the commission of a crime or evading police, and 20 yrs for any major crime committed while in possession of a firearm or weapon.

The first thing our government needs to understand is it only costs $150/day for an inmate, these criminals on average are stealing $1000 a day.
Also the majority of these criminals are on supplemented income and free benefits costing tax payers another $30,000.00/yr (in other words the government is paying these criminals to steal from us).

So if we say 100 criminals are stealing $356,000/yr each for a total of $35,600,000/yr and are drawing an additional $3,000,000.00 in tax funded services.

The cost of these 100 criminals to citizens is $38,600,000.00/yr

If we were to incarcerate these same criminals our cost would be $5,340,000.00/yr this would leave us ample room to implement rehabilitation services in prison, as well create many more jobs in the prison, construction, and health sectors, also freeing up our health services in each municipality to aid those in need instead of hundreds of junkies and criminals!

Sincerely,

(author does not wish to be identified)

(Stats for incarceration figures from: https://edmontonjournal.com/…/70-per-cent-of-prisoners-in-a…)

(Average theft costs based on Red Deer crime watch stats compiled over 1 year.)