Following the surfacing of a video of a young teen having his bicycle stolen at gunpoint in Williams Lake, B.C., the city council voted unanimously to inject GPS tracking devices into the bodies of repeat offenders so that the community can feel more at ease knowing exactly where all the miscreants are at all times. Some might suggest that the councillors take the plunge first, but that would make them as silly as their intended victims. Mightn’t it be better to ponder why there are prolific offenders and what might be done to bring these people back into the main stream of community life? It seems unlikely that this initiative would go very far in any case, but it seems typical of the frustration that leads us to throw up quick and dirty “solutions” to problems that have deeper and more nuanced causes and where we don’t seem to have the capacity to develop the patience and insight to address the problems other than with band-aid ideas more likely to exacerbate the problem than to improve the situation. But let’s let this one slide right on by.