We can be thankful we live here

A look at the headlines in our two provincial daily newspapers over the past week paints a grim picture.

Four young men knifed in Halifax. A man beaten over the head with an axe in New Glasgow. A pregnant woman attacked by a sword-wielding assailant. A 60-year-old woman beaten by three teenage girls on the Halifax Commons. An Amherst man sentenced to four years in prison for raping a 12-year-old girl at knifepoint.

And that’s only a sample. Incidents of senseless and unexplained violence, throughout the province and especially in Halifax, are on the rise and have reached a critical stage, leaving elected officials and even police shaking their heads.

What’s baffling is these violent incidents seem to be unnecessary and totally lacking in motive – ‘crime for the sake of crime’.

And as much as people would like to blame it on youth and the shortcomings of the Youth Criminal Justice Act (which are real), these crimes don’t seem to be either age, race or class-specific.

Even more puzzling, according to Halifax police, these incidents have occurred at a time when crime generally - even violent crime - seems to be on the decline.

Now more than ever, we should be thankful we live where we do. Not to be sanctimonious or holier-than-thou because no one is perfect, but it’s not just our imagination that things don’t seem to be as bad here in Kings County.

We have our moments – we’re sure the families of Leslie Ann Conrad and Chris Parks would agree – but on the whole, given that Kings County is the third largest area in the province in terms of population, we really haven’t seen the kind of violent crime here that has become characteristic elsewhere.

Some might suggest it has to do with being an urban area with rural attitudes and there’s probably some truth to that.

The bottom line is, though, except for a few exceptions, this is still a place where you can generally walk the streets after dark, where neighbours watch out for neighbours and where most people still have some respect for others and their property.

Hopefully, it won’t get any worse than it is for at least the foreseeable future, if ever, but whether or not it does is really up to us.

All of us have a part to play in discouraging this kind of violent behaviour and letting those who might choose to behave this way know that it simply isn’t acceptable, not here or anywhere else.