Gun violence in Montreal: half a million dollars per gun crime

Every time a criminal decides to use his firearm to commit a crime, it costs society half a million dollars, an unpublished study reveals.

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The fruit of this exhaustive research will be published by the end of the year, but the preliminary results obtained exclusively by The newspaper report exorbitant costs.

By far the costliest crime is homicide, with an average of $10 million per murder committed with a firearm.

Researchers Yanick Charette, associate professor in social work and criminology at Université Laval, and Maude Mailloux-Savard, doctoral student in criminology, looked at the economic aspect of the scourge in order to provide decision-makers with tools.

“It makes it possible to finance projects, to see how much we should invest in the problem to succeed in having a return on our investments”, explains Professor Charette.

Murder

attempted murder

Gun discharge

MONTREAL JOURNAL / QMI AGENCY PHOTOS

This map was produced based on events covered by the media and available documents. Some events counted in the official figures provided by the SPVM have passed under the radar and are therefore not found there.

Three types of expenses

Costs have been listed in three broad categories. The first encompasses the police aspect, the courts and correctional services. The second covers health care in hospital, loss of productivity in the event that the person has to miss work or becomes disabled, psychological support services for the victim and rehabilitation services. The last includes costs related to the victim’s loved ones, such as funeral expenses and social services.

“The costs are rising so quickly, observes Étienne Blais, professor of criminology at the University of Montreal. If an 18 year old is drawn per firearm, its number of years of useful life lost is large. And that involves parallel services, the police investigation, the legal proceedings. »

Also in the hospital

The costs of hospital services also occupy a gigantic part of the social cost of shootings, the forthcoming study indicates. According to the D^r Jeremy Grushka, trauma surgeon, we sometimes underestimate all the mobilization and resources needed to treat a single person with a gunshot wound.

“I am thinking of a patient recently who stayed 300 days in the hospital after being shot,” explains the man who works at the Montreal General Hospital.

In the context of a murder, where life imprisonment is expected, the costs can be astronomical considering that an inmate costs the taxpayers an average of $350 a day, according to Professor Charette.

Thus, by opting for other solutions such as prevention, the savings are much greater than the investment, believes Professor Blais.

“If we invest $1 million in prevention, we risk saving $3 million in terms of repressive activities,” he says.

But criminologist Maria Mourani also sheds light on the human cost of such tragedies.

“A parent who loses their teenager will have to live their whole life with this pain,” she said. It is not quantifiable. He will die with this pain. »

A doctor at the forefront of these tragedies in Montreal

A trauma surgeon who witnesses the devastation wrought by bullets every day worries about the heavy burden that gun violence places on hospitals.

“The part that always strikes me is the impact of a gunfight. We take a patient who is almost one foot in the grave. To save him, it takes a whole team, massive blood transfusions, long operations where we sometimes open the neck, the chest, the abdomen, and then there is a stay in intensive care, ”explains the D^r Jeremy Grushka, intensive care physician and trauma surgeon at the Montreal General Hospital.

It is one of two trauma centers in the metropolis. The team to which he belongs includes eight surgeons.

Already overwhelmed by patients passing on the operating table, he fears that the rate of gunfire since January will become the norm.

“We notice that armed violence persists and we fear that there will be an increase this summer. We are preparing for that, we have a well-trained team, ”assured the one who is spokesperson for the Canadian Doctors coalition for better gun control.

New reality

When he started in 2005, at the McGill University Health Centre, he remembers that patients injured by gunshots were rather rare. So much so that it even caused a “concussion” within the medical team when a case arose. But it has become an almost daily reality, he laments.

“Now we can have three or four operations for gunshot wounds a week. When we are informed that a victim fallen under the bullets arrives, we are not even surprised any more. We say to ourselves: well, another one, ”he confided.

Yet he laments that those who shoot themselves trivialize the serious consequences of a gunshot wound.

“In the movies, you often see that they open the patient, remove the bullet and everything is fine. It always makes me laugh because the ball, who cares. The problems are at the level of vital organs, blood vessels and tissues which are completely destroyed,” he described.

Distress of loved ones

And during such an operation, sometimes they have to replace the entire amount of blood in the body four or five times.

Despite the experience, he confides that the emotion is always strong when he has to announce the death of a victim to relatives.

“No matter their nationality, their religion, their social class, the cry that comes out of their mouths is always the same when they learn that their son or their spouse will never return home again. It breaks my heart every time,” he said.

GUNS NEED TO BE ELIMINATED, DOCTOR BELIEVES

Repairing bullet-pierced bodies has led a trauma surgeon to believe in getting guns off the streets.

“Just last week, we received three patients drawn by bullets, including two who were very seriously injured, who required operations to be saved”, launched the D^r Jeremy Grushka.

As part of his work as a trauma surgeon at the Montreal General Hospital, he regularly sees patients hit by bullets, whose lives are turned upside down forever. Others die.

serious consequences

Very often, these are young people, “who have their whole lives ahead of them”, but who, for a “stupid” act, find themselves mortgaged.

“These are acts of violence that should no longer be part of our society,” he said.

After completing his studies and his residency at McGill University, he went to work in Miami, where several patients fell under the bullets daily.

“We are afraid that it will become a daily reality for us, and I find it so depressing,” said the man who has been back in Montreal since 2014.

He regrets that the ongoing outbreak of violence is disturbing Montrealers’ sense of security.

“We have people here who are being shot [dessus] leaving schools, leaving a restaurant or crossing the street. We no longer see it once a year, it’s continuous, ”he worried.

According to Dr. Grushka, the most effective and rapid way to stop the hemorrhage of armed violence in Montreal would be to better regulate firearms control.

A priority

“We are talking about an object with which you can take a life in two seconds,” he insisted.

If he is involved with the coalition of doctors who campaign against armed violence, it is because he wants to ensure that this issue remains a priority for governments.

Certainly, the firearms that end up in the hands of criminals usually come from the United States, according to police reports. But the D^r Grushka sees the issue more from a public health angle.

“It’s something that kills people, and it happens more and more often. It must be treated as if we are talking about cancers, heart disease, neurological disorders, ”he concluded.