Last week, many Toronto news outlets reported that Toronto has the lowest crime rate of all the major Canadian cities. This is comforting news. I am sure some of us felt relieved or even re-assured. However, something just doesn’t add up. While this sounds like good news, I’m having trouble reconciling it with the number of home invasions that have been in the news in the past couple of months. The fact is that most of the crimes that make up the “lowest crime rate” stats, do not include smaller scale crimes that directly victimize our communities.  Crimes such as break & enters rarely make the news – especially if there are no assaults or injuries. On a daily basis, there are a significant amount of break and enters that occur in residential neighbourhoods.  All you have to do is Google the news releases for your community’s police force. You’ll be surprised by the number of crimes that are actually occurring in your community and you’ll get a clear sense of why you intuitively take no comfort in the boast that Toronto has the lowest crime rate.

I consider my neighbourhood in Markham to be very safe, but when I Googled the news released for the York Regional Police, I was stunned to see the amount of break-ins that had occurred. Yet I have never seen these occurrences in my local newspaper.  So let us just consider Toronto, with its population of 2,791,140 people (as of July 1, 2013). How many more of these types of incidents are taking place on a daily basis? When I Googled Toronto Police News Releases, I was stunned by the long list of crimes I saw that go unreported by the news media.  The length of the list makes me wonder if our local police have the resources to investigate all these criminals who put my life and yours at risk? I know they’re doing their best, but I also know they don’t have the budgets they need to really do their job.

Criminals who are breaking into our homes are not only more bold than before, they are also a lot smarter. They are not only taking the time to scope out our homes before they attack, they know who the builders are, the model of our homes and the layouts. If we have alarm systems installed, they do their homework on the company who installed your system. This is why you see homes with signs from big security companies still being broken into. For criminals, it is a well-known fact that even the big corporations are still selling “ a basic system” over the phone to anyone who is willing  and they do this without ever seeing your actual home. How does this carelessness protect us and our communities?

We need to take active measures to protect our families! Furthermore, stakeholders in the security industry need to be more responsible. Sure, they’re in business to make a profit, but the business they’re in must be about actually protecting their customers!  They need to care more. They need to make the effort to ensure our security systems actually make us secure. They need to make the effort to educate us on how we can better protect ourselves, our loved ones and our properties. When we work together like this, that’s when we will see a true reduction in the actual crime rate.

My passion for security runs deep. I started Wincon Security 20 years ago as a young man who just graduated from college, because I cared about protecting people. I pride myself on the care we take to protect our customers in the Stouffville and Markham areas. Criminals know that when they see a home with the Wincon Security decal on it, that home is protected by a company that pays attention to detail. If you’re wondering if your home is properly secure, please call us today and request a free Home Vulnerability Assessment.

Let’s not get influenced into a false sense of security when you see or hear news declaring reduction in crime. All it takes is one break and enter or home invasion to ruin our lives. Let’s work together to make our communities safer.