More police won't stop the violence

re. 16-year-old gunned down in doorway of his home

Shameful and disgusting. What's worse are the people who want instant cures for these types of problems. If only it was as simple as putting more police on the streets. However, as continually escalating numbers of police over the last decade have shown, policing by itself is not the answer.

Violence doesn't suddenly appear in a community and there is no fast track to eliminating it. Well-publicized mass arrests of gang members have done nothing to curb the violence. Nor can they be expected to as long as we do nothing to resolve the problems that drive our youth into gangs and incubate a culture of violence.

The cuts to education and social programs a decade ago meant that many children didn't get the assistance they needed when they needed it. Because we didn't address those problems then, we pay for it now as yesterday's troubled children become today's violent youth.

The cure will take as long as the disease. If we reinvest now to ensure that behavioural and developmental problems are identified and treated while they still can be, and if we ensure that our young people have other outlets for their energy, and if we create opportunities for them when they leave the school system, then we have a chance to end the violence.

If, on the other hand, we continue to insist that tax cuts and prisons are the real solutions, then the battle is already lost.

Gary Dale