“Justice”

The family of a woman shot by an officer in Edmonton during a wellness check says her death was unnecessary, as the number of police shootings across Canada show little sign of relenting over the past four years.

Across America, the social fabric looks increasingly threadbare.

Whatever else it may be, crime is mostly neither glamorous nor mysterious. A quotient of antisocial behavior has figured in every known society. In the Denmark of the human soul there is something eternally rotten. Some have peered into the dark heart of criminality and found, not inscrutable evil or anguished reaction to an oppressive system, but untrammeled self-interest. “All the lofty talk about the ‘root causes’ of crime,” writes social thinker Thomas Sowell, “fail[s] to notice the obvious: People commit crimes because they are people—because they are innately selfish and do not care how their behavior affects other people, unless they have been raised to behave otherwise or unless they fear the criminal justice system.”

Reflections on the impact that lawlessness—and an inescapable awareness of it—has on society and the psyche

The man in the green hoodie wanted to show off his knife. The weapon he flicked open was a large foldaway with a curved blade, illegal in New York City, no matter its length; the setting for his performance was the uptown D train, going express from Columbus Circle to 125th Street. There was a full moon in the sky, and underground, as so often now, there were disturbances: fights broke out, insults were hurled, the air was thick with barely suppressed violence. Protests earlier that day had brought part of the metropolis to a standstill. A group of demonstrators, riled by the accidental death of a mentally ill homeless man with an outstanding arrest warrant and a history of violence, had shut down the subway at East 63rd Street and Lexington Avenue for nearly an hour, blocking doors and occupying the tracks to prevent trains from entering or leaving the station. Now, a late Saturday night was bleeding into predawn Sunday, a fragile metal shell was hurtling through a lighted tunnel under the earth, and in the conductor’s car, a show of prowess was being put on. “My arm doesn’t move, bro.” Holding the knife at his side, the man in the green hoodie opened the blade discreetly, with a small movement of his hand. “If my arm doesn’t move and you’re making eye contact with me, you won’t see shit until it’s too late.” Several times he opened and closed the blade before his friend’s eyes, feinting with it, brandishing it in full view of half a dozen riders. His dreadlocks swung heavily as he moved. He explained with gusto how he might stab someone to death.

Americans must become confident again that their government will enforce the law, without fear or favor.

The summer of 2020 resembled a political revolution. Militants associated with Black Lives Matter and Antifa led the most destructive riots in American history. Radicals burned down city blocks, perpetrated acts of violence, and briefly established an “autonomous zone” in Seattle characterized by a police-free political order and a homicide rate 50 times higher than that of Chicago.

Arrested and released 14 times, a chronic offender’s journey through B.C.’s corrections system exposes vital gaps

After pleading guilty to his 11th random assault, Mohammed Majidpour was released from jail last month, on the condition that he stay at a downtown Vancouver homeless shelter.

He had been in pretrial detention for nearly a year. In order to secure his freedom, the 36-year-old had also agreed to many other conditions, including that he stay away from the illicit opioids and stimulants that had fuelled his previous bouts of psychosis. He was also required to check in regularly with his probation officer on the city’s Downtown Eastside, to ensure he was sticking to a plan crafted by the justice system to protect the public and help him improve his life.