The Cost of Looking Away: Crime, Complacency, and the Winnipeg We Build

By: Don Woodstock

In cities like Winnipeg, it’s tempting to think of crime as someone else’s problem. It’s happening in another neighbourhood. To someone else’s child. But every time we look away, we pay a price—sometimes with our safety, but more often with our humanity.

Crime doesn’t appear overnight. It grows in silence, in neglect, in resignation. When neighbours stop calling each other by name, when parks go unused, when youth have nowhere to be after school—that’s when vulnerability sets in. And vulnerable places invite trouble.

But there’s a flip side. Community groups who organize cleanups, local entrepreneurs who invest in their blocks, seniors who sit on their porches and greet passersby—these people are frontline defenders, even if they’ve never worn a badge.

To ignore crime is to invite it. But to engage—even in small, consistent ways—is to push back. We need more than concern. We need connection. And it doesn’t take a council meeting to start—it can begin with a smile, a shared project, a story told on the stoop.

The Winnipeg we build tomorrow depends on the choices we make today. Will we invest in our youth, our shared spaces, our communal pride? Or will we continue to outsource safety to others while our own front yards deteriorate?

Every time we choose to look closer instead of looking away, we build a better version of this city. And if enough of us do it, the change won’t be temporary. It’ll be transformational.

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