Thoughts on Auto Theft

The Manitoba provincial election is tomorrow, and I’m reflecting on two previous columns I wrote about auto theft in our province. Manitoba has the highest rate of auto theft in Canada, even in North America.

Many cars are stolen by youngsters under the age of 18. In a recent column, I noted that, according to news reports, many of these child car thieves, suffer from intellectual disabilities or Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder - FASD.

During the election campaign, both the NDP and the PC want more police, which is fine. The NDP, during the campaign, has advocated tougher sentencing laws from the federal government. But the NDP hasn’t really addressed the main issue: the federal laws are the same across Canada - why is Manitoba’s auto theft rate so much higher than elsewhere?

Nice to see, however, that the PC platform includes about $5 million in funding for FASD prevention and treatment. That approach would seem to address more of the root causes, rather than simply calling for “tougher” laws.

In a column I wrote a couple of years ago, I looked at the Grand Theft Auto games. I might have thought, as many still do, that these games actually encourage real behaviour like auto theft. And, in fact, the Manitoba government has moved to restrict the sale of these games to kids. I was quite struck, however, by the arguments made by Steven Johnson in his book: Everything Bad is Good for You: How Today’s Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter.

In the United States, Johnson points out, auto theft is down substantially since the first Grand Theft Auto game was released in 1997. Violent crime has dropped dramatically in the last ten years, coinciding with the release of more violent video games. Could it be, asks Johnson, that would-be auto thieves and other criminals are now “getting their thrills on the screen instead of the street?”

Johnson also cites several large-scale studies which have been tracking American kids since the 1970s. They find that today’s youth are not only less violent, but also do better academically.

I think we should take another look at our kids here in Manitoba, the ones affected by FASD, the ones stealing cars. As I said in my column, if it takes a village to raise a child, then something is rotten in the state of our provincial village.

Although suffering from intellectual disabilities, many of these youngsters are quite technically adept. At least at stealing cars, these kids exhibit technical competence that is well beyond that of the average person. Perhaps they should be playing more video games. Perhaps their technical skills could be harnessed for their, and society’s, good.

Such thoughts probably can’t be considered during the heat of an election campaign. But maybe they could be considered in the light of day afterwards.