Didsbury suffers repeated pet and vehicle thefts. They are devastating to the families and individuals who suffer these losses. I know some of these people.
Theft as a habit in Didsbury starts much smaller and with thieves who are younger.
We live near the corner of 23rd Street and 19th Avenue. Like many smokers, we smoke outside our homes as we are not permitted by our landlord to smoke inside. We often leave partial cigarettes in the ashtray as we do not always want a whole smoke at once.
Routinely cigarettes and ashtrays are being stolen from the table where we sit to smoke. The suspects are rowdy neighbourhood youths, who are getting more and more brave and brazen as time goes by. This has also been happening to a friend of ours who lives down the street.
In 1982, the police and politicians of New York City adopted the “broken window” theory that unrepaired windows were the start of lawlessness and more chaos and crime. Someone noticed that when a broken window was left unrepaired, the neglect encouraged vandals to break other windows. If the broken window is replaced no other windows were broken. Thus officials encouraged the quick repair of broken windows and crime rates went down.
In Didsbury the “broken window” is petty theft from yards and patios. The suspects are “just kids” but the consequences of this behaviour will be more serious vandalism and the increase in thefts of vehicles and pets.
Kelly Ketchum,
Didsbury
