The Lone Gunman, Crime Prevention and Committing Sociology

Looking at his offences while he was in the Navy, that the offences while he was in uniform, uh, none of those give you an indication that he was capable of this sort of brutal, vicious violence," Kirby said.

Of course not.  How on earth could firing a gun in anger and a history of disrespecting authority possibly hint at the potential for firing a gun in anger in contempt of people?  The fact of the matter is that this massacre could have been prevented is proper intervention had happened proactively.  The problem is, nobody had the conviction or foresight to act until it was already too late.

The same holds true for the murders of people like Chantel Dunn and Jane Creba.  We'll stick to the Creba case which, oddly enough, more people will be familiar with - there were plenty of moments in the lives of the youth who shot Creba, including Jorrell Simpson-Rowe, where intervention could have happened.  Where kids on an almost unavoidable collision course with gangs, guns and violence could have been redirected.

But nobody did.  There were no positive role-models, no firm-but fair lessons of discipline, empathy and social etiquette.  No one ever invested in Simpson-Rowe - is it any surprise that "his attitude through most of his teenaged years appears to have been very much one of not just 'me first,' but one of 'me only.'  This attitude emerges still."?  When  in his life did anyone provide an in-person example that wasn't "me only?"   

Here in Canada, we have a policy focus from multiple levels of governments that zeroes in on monitoring and punishment, but never intervention.  In the words of Prime Minister Stephen Harper:

"Our security agencies work with each other and wither others around the globe to track people who are threats to Canada and to watch threats that may evolve.  I think, though, this is not a time to commit sociology."

We see it again and again - tough reactions and calls for justice and punishment after a crime has been committed.   Meanwhile, the mounting evidence-based recommendations of early intervention (in both cases of mental health and social access), social services and parental supports get dismissed as thug-hugging.  

At the same time, these kids are embodying the overarching lessons we're drumming into youth - to get ahead in life, you have to look out for number one, you have to be confident and play elbows-up to best competition and you have to take risks to be successful.

Governments and businesses are all reaching for the low-hanging fruit - the quick policy wins, the immediate cost-saving service or labour cuts, so on and so forth.  

Criminals are doing the exact same thing - you get greater ROI for robbing a store or selling drugs than for slogging through the drafting and dropping off CVs for interviews that will never materialize.  If some folk get hurt along the way, that's the cost of doing business.  The difference between callous firing of employees or using personal attack ads against competitors and simply shooting your rivals is merely one of degrees.

Naturally, successful people like Mike Duffy and Bruce Carson will take great offense to this.  After all, they are neither murders or criminals.  They simply work the system they live in to their advantage.  By the same token, Mike Harris didn't kill Dudley George, nor did Bill Blair shoot Sammy Yatim; bullets and the fall killed them.

"They have a choice," conservative policy makers keep telling us about the hardened criminals in our society.  They could seek out mentors on their own, persevere through hiring discrimination and racial profiling by service providers and pull their bootstraps up, just like everyone else is supposed to do.  So what if it's harder for them, if the challenges that for us are hills for them are mountains?  That's their problem, not ours.

Society doesn't put guns in the hands of these lone gunmen and give them licence to shoot innocents in selfish battles for power and prestige.  But we clearly aren't doing enough to open up alternative paths for marginalized people, either.

See, we have a choice, too.  Our policy makers have a choice.

We can continue to say "it's up to them, we're not their parents" and when they are parents, "they need to a better job of raising their kids."  We can ignore all the warning signs of mental illness or anti-social behaviour, hoping someone else will deal with it or simply not caring.  

We can continue to take funding out of social intervention and support programs, redirecting it instead towards building more prisons and hiring more police.  Punishing people after the crime does nothing to prevent them from happening - and as many have warned, repeatedly, Canada's rapidly growing minority populations are over-represented in the prison system.  

If the trend continues, you'll see a social cleavage between defended haves and rebellious have-nots that is in no one's best interests.  You might not care about their lack of social access, but believe me, they do.  Of such conflicts of interest are revolutions made.

Committing sociology isn't about paternalism or pandering to criminals - its about proactively avoiding problems by understanding and addressing their causes before it's too late.  

We can continue to treat lead poisoning, or we can take the lead out of the pipes.  For that, ultimately, is the God-given choice and responsibility we all face - every man for himself or do unto others as you'd have them do unto you.  Whichever choice we make, we will all live with the consequences.

I shouted out,
Who killed the Kennedys?
When after all
It was you and me.

Are Silo Walls Starting To Come Down?

There's certainly a growing chorus us voices suggesting that's in our collective interest.

There is a lot of danger with the silo system. So why is it still so prevalent?

This issue goes way, way beyond the topic of social media. You can apply the same types of questions to customer experience, or org design, or innovation, or ethics: who owns these things? When it comes to fundamental issues such as these, shouldn’t everyone own them, across all of the silos?

The problem with the silo system in modern corporations is, when everyone owns something, no one does.

Government Relations: Challenge and Solution

The changes would give the Integrity Commissioner the ability to ban someone from lobbying, to order individuals to testify and to force lobbyists to provide documents.

The government of Ontario is continuing its crack-down on lobbying.  Any reforms implemented will make it more challenging for those in the lobbying industry to do their work, therefore making lobbying less profitable.  A sidebar will be less organizations willing to use external lobbyists from fear of getting caught in a scandal; at the same time, politicians will be more wary of seeking the advice of lobbyists, because they won’t want to suffer the slings and arrows of social media, either.

Done properly, there is a definite public benefit in terms of transparency and accountability.  It’s kinda nice to know how policy decisions are being informed and who’s playing a role in deciding the public’s fate, as well as knowing where on the margins our tax dollars are being spent.  There’s a real big negative to the track being followed, though – lobbying is being turned into a dirty word.  If a lobbyist is brain-storming with a client and throwing out far-fetched ideas to build context before settling on a direction to take, would that kind of information be accessible to the public?  Would it be presented with context, or in a way that validates the narrative of a journalist/politician/interest group?  How would bans work?  Would they be permanent, would they involve remediation?  If a politician needs to understand how a complex set of issues impact a sector in language they understand, who will provide them with that insight?

While there are real and justifiable concerns about how lobbying works, we have to keep in mind just what the role of an effective lobbyist is.  The good ones aren’t just meeting-arrangers or influence-peddlers; they’re translators.  They speak the languages of business, of specific sectors like health care or education and they speak politics.  This is no small thing; we have a silo-based system of governance and silo-based industries that really don’t know how to communicate with each other.  It's not as easy as one might think to pick up the phone and reach a Minister, or a Deputy Minister, or even an MPP.  Besides, when you get them, what do you say?  How do you frame your message in a way that connects with the political folk?  How do you resonate?  Do you understand their specific position and what's informed that position?  This is the gap that good lobbyists fill.  Without them, who will?

The sad truth is, nobody will.  That level of communication will just cease to happen or even worse, be driven so far underground that only the bad apples who are spoiling the industry will take the risk of skirting the rules and make bigger bucks for doing so.  Meanwhile, tri-sector partners will circle each other like heart-breaking best friends, wanting to reach out but not knowing how.  The duplications, gaps and overlaps of our system will expand; the distance between our social silos will grow wider.

There's a better way, but it's not an easy one.  It requires all parties to shift their thinking a little bit and get past the demand for elevator-pitch explanations.  Lobbyists will have to want to be transparent in the way they work, but doing so will also help build their brand.  They'll have to develop goals beyond profit that they work towards, holding themselves to rigorous standards.  For its part, the public will have to be open to the idea that politics isn't simple, that translation is necessary and that it's not a bad thing to have third-party mediators connecting not just government and the private sector, but the Not-For-Profit sector as well.  After all, you can't develop win-win solutions without a bit of give-and-take.

Believe it or not, the model to follow on this was innovated by The Courtyard Group.  They started with an idea - improving healthcare - and focused all their attention, all their expertise on that sphere.  They made money, but they did so in the context of solving a problem.  Were there issues with how that idea played out?  Of course there were; that doesn't invalidate the idea, but rather provide a lesson to learn from.  Firms of any sort that follow a practice-area model develop specialized expertise in both subject-matter and communication, which is an invaluable tool for everyone.  The trick now is for everyone to dedicate just a bit more effort to considering the broader context and both how they git into that matrix and how that role will be perceived.

This is the model that is being pursued by the rising number of social entrepreneurs in Ontario and across the country.  These are people who have figured out it's possible to do the right thing and make money at the same time.  They don't see admitting mistakes as putting blood in the water, but as an opportunity to share and learn from collective experience.  I myself fall into this category; I know where my passions lie and I have the skills, experience and connectivity to turn them into positive solutions. I'm also conscious of the fact I don't have all the answers and can only achieve my goals through strategic collaborations.  The future of GR will, from necessity, embody this approach.  It might be a harder path, but ultimately, a more rewarding one both selfishly and altruistically.  Consultants conscious of their place in a societal network will focus less on getting rich quick and instead, put more emphasis on building a lasting, positive legacy.