Westover: Certainly we are able to cease teenagers from collaborating in automotive theft

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Phrase travels quick. Particularly on a small crescent in Barrhaven. The new matter? Automobile theft.

Once more.

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Our doorbell rang round two within the afternoon. It was a neighbour reporting a teen or younger grownup casing the road round 4:30 am, gliding his bicycle gliding up and down the driveways, pulling on automotive doorways and peering in again home windows.

Autos have been stolen that night time. “Two automobiles a pair streets over, two behind us, and three over that method,” our neighbour mentioned, ticking off every lacking car on his fingers. We couldn’t fact-check his reporting nevertheless it sounded about proper, given every little thing we learn about thieves’ propensity for Ottawa’s southwest nook.

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In Barrhaven, we’re ideally positioned if you wish to hop on a busy freeway and race away along with your ill-gotten beneficial properties to elements unknown.

My husband reviewed our personal out of doors digicam footage, and positive sufficient, although ill-lit and overexposed, we have been capable of watch the identical fleet-of-foot trouble-maker yanking on the door of our SUV, evident up on the digicam, completely detached to its supposed function. We might make out a beard and approximate face form, however little else.

He really seemed on the digicam as if to problem its very supposed function. The message was clear: “What are you going to do about it?”

I usually marvel in regards to the teenagers who get roped into appearing as scouts or lookouts, who do the preliminary casing on their innocuous-looking bicycles. They don’t do the stealing, or so I’m given to grasp. Apparently its greater, badder criminals who swoop in later to smash again home windows and slither inside. I can’t assist however assume these children won’t become involved in the event that they realized the extent to which they’re supporting different, extra nefarious crimes.

Stealing a automotive for its personal function is one factor, however stealing autos to help organized crime is one thing else.

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Teen brains are underdeveloped and extremely impulsive. However they’re impressionable too. And maybe that’s one thing the great guys can use to their benefit.

There isn’t a silver bullet to resolve a problem as complicated and pervasive as automotive theft, but when we might present younger folks the real-world implications earlier than they dip their toe within the morass of criminality, they could be unwilling to compromise their futures in service to nefarious thugs.

Perhaps we must always invite police or victims of automotive theft to talk at elementary and center faculties, or create some TikTok content material that hits residence. I keep in mind as a teenager seeing a “give up smoking” industrial that confirmed an attractive lady ageing in hyper-speed, changing into a hollow-cheeked, yellow-toothed horror, inside a drag or two of her cigarette. Had I ever craved the imagined sophistication of a cigarette, that picture cured me of it, and quick.

Equally, if younger folks realized that automotive theft doesn’t simply damage the person who misplaced their property — a seemingly “prosperous” grownup whom they assume can afford larger insurance coverage premiums and manage non permanent transport — however really funds issues way more damaging and distasteful than the ravages of smoking, they may assume twice.

Weakening one hyperlink within the chain is a begin. Including an additional police presence at peak occasions (3 a.m. to 4:30 a.m. appears to be the neighbourhood consensus) wouldn’t damage both.

However within the meantime, I spent Sunday making room for the automotive within the storage. For now, it’s the most effective reply I’ve received to “What are you going to do about it.”

Suzanne Westover is an Ottawa author.

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