INSTITUTIONS EMPTIED OUT AND THE PRISONS FILLED UP

This month, the Vancouver Police Department released a report that
deserved to be front-page news across the country. "More than
one-third of all calls for Vancouver police involve people with mental
health issues," the report found. "In the Downtown Eastside, it
increases to almost one in every two calls."

This report provides real insight into what an effective
crime-fighting strategy would look like. And it's a strong indication
of what won't work.

What won't work? It's pretty much what the federal government is
doing.

Tougher sentences will make thugs think twice before mugging little
old ladies, the Harper government insists. More punishment equals less
crime. But underlying that conclusion are two assumptions: One, that
would-be criminals are aware of the sentencing provisions of the
Criminal Code; two, that they factor that knowledge into the rational
calculations they make in deciding whether to commit a crime or not.
Does the benefit outweigh the risk? If so, they do it. If not, they
don't.

There's plenty of evidence that both assumptions are wrong in most
cases. The average criminal isn't a 42-year-old chartered accountant
with a newspaper subscription. He's an ignorant and impulsive
21-year-old.

And that's before we factor in alcohol and drugs. Substance abuse is
so common among criminals it's actually the sober repeat offender who
stands out.

And finally, there's mental illness. What does the threat of a
mandatory minimum sentence mean to a frightened man struggling not to
hear the voices in his head? If it is silly to expect an ignorant and
impulsive 21-year-old criminal to engage in calculation, it is insane
to expect it of the insane.

Crime, drugs and mental illness are rarely seen apart.

Why? Lots of us think it starts with the drugs.

In North America, this tends to be the official line, although
officialdom will usually admit that, sometimes, mental illness comes
first.

That some drugs can cause mental problems in some circumstances is
clear. But in most cases, causation runs the other way: Mental illness
leads to drug abuse. "Recent research indicates that psychopathology
usually precedes drug use," notes the European Monitoring Centre for
Drugs and Drug Addiction, a European Union research agency.

Most often, mental illness is the disease. Drugs and crime are the
symptoms.

Ignore this dynamic and the policies we adopt to fight drugs and crime
almost certainly won't work.

Acknowledge it and new possibilities arise.

The full title of the Vancouver report is "Lost in Transition: How a
Lack of Capacity in
the Mental Health System Is Failing Vancouver's Mentally Ill and
Draining Police
Resources." That title would work pretty much everywhere.

The problem goes back to the 1950s, an era when the mentally ill
tended to be rounded up and locked away and forgotten in large,
soulless institutions. In the 1960s, there was a backlash and the
order of the day was "deinstitutionalization" -- which called for the
mentally ill to be given the supports and services they need to live
in the community. Through the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, the old
institutions closed.

Governments everywhere botched the job. Closing institutions was easy
and it saved money. But the supports needed to make
deinstitutionalization work cost money, so governments weren't nearly
so enthusiastic about that half of the equation.

The institutionalized population declined.

Simultaneously, the homeless, addicted and prison populations rose.
Instead of being locked away and forgotten in mental hospitals, the
mentally ill were locked away and forgotten in prisons.

The Vancouver police report calls for construction of "a mental health
care facility that can accommodate moderate to long-term stays," along
with a plethora of new mental health programs and supports. Treat the
disease, not the symptoms.

Ah, but democracy intrudes. A politician who tells the angry residents
of a neighbourhood riddled with crime and drugs that he will increase
mental health services is likely to be pelted with tomatoes. Promise
more punishment and they'll throw bouquets.

So more punishment is what we get. And we'll keep on getting it until
we start thinking more rationally than criminals.