Citizen's Arrest

Truly, sometimes the law is an ass. And on those occasions when it is, it well behooves us to have another look at what we take to be set in stone. Of course, there are times and instances when the law is meant to be useful and fair but it somehow fails to address a real problem through its inability to address the intricacies of the problem.

In the case of citizen's arrest as acknowledged under the law, one that had its antecedents before the present era, when individuals were less lawfully protected than is now the case, there are some problems inherent in the observation of its careful delineation of the acceptable. A citizen's arrest must be made in the immediate, viewed, aftermath of a crime.

There is a slight problem with that. Police do not respond with what might be termed alacrity when informed through a 911 call that there is a crime in progress. There are too few law enforcement officers, and too many nuisance calls that represent truly petty crimes.

To the individual who becomes a victim of that 'inconsequential' crime scene like a home theft or a retail purloining, the crime does not seem petty at all. To the harried police investigator such relatively insignificant crimes do not loom large in importance. They will eventually get around to responding; when other, more urgent matters are seen to.

So, in the case of Toronto's David Chen, a downtown Chinatown merchant who, 'after the fact' of a nuisance theft undertook to detain the man who committed that theft, a man well known in the area for committing countless such thefts, the law looks askance at his enterprising initiative to assist the police in detention of a petty criminal.

He has been charged with assault and forcible confinement. Just a little absurd perhaps, under the circumstances. The thief certainly thought so, since he had already absconded with the avails of his minor theft, and was likely in the planning process of another, just like it. One the neighbourhood merchants were long accustomed to, which irritated the hell out of them, but that's life.

Civil liberties groups and police caution against extreme reactions to the preponderance of such petty thefts and the compulsion of some people to react against the predators who commonly take advantage of the opportunity of seizing goods set out in decent weather, in front of shops where passersby can swiftly lay claim to items for sale. And it's true, things could get out of hand.

So it's a conundrum of headache proportions. It makes sense for the victim of a crime, however petty, to sit back and wait for police to take action. But what kind of action can be taken when the crime has been committed and the resources to identify the criminal are sparse (absent video-detection) and the time lapsed between the crime and the police arrival ensures the victim will be commiserated with, but not much else will surface.

This is precisely what home-owners face in the event of home invasions and thefts from the home. And it explains in large part why home-alarm companies do such a brisk business, when home-owners can afford the installation of detection devices and the monthly oversight charges.

That's life in the possession-and-theft-game, alas.