CRIME CONUNDRUM

Tough choices lie ahead. How far are we as a society willing to go to
rationally deal with prolific offenders?

Allan Castle

Special to the Sun

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and its partners in British Columbia
are focusing in several communities on joint management of the most
prolific offenders, who form perhaps 10 per cent of the criminal
population but commit as much as 50 per cent of the crime. Similarly,
Vancouver police are focusing on chronic offenders.

A simple and compelling approach -- but its lasting impact will only
come from matching this work in the field with a systemic revolution
in B.C.'s approach to crime and social disorder.

Offending is not evenly distributed. Some people commit only one or
two crimes; for others that first conviction becomes one of many. And
while the hard core commit hundreds of crimes annually, taken
individually their crimes -- particularly property crimes -- rarely
carry much in terms of hard time.

In fact, for the most prolific offenders in B.C., the startling fact
is that most of their crimes are committed while they are serving
community sentences. The "revolving door" of justice is nearly literal.

Some suggest we simply need to increase sentences. For those involved
in repeated violence or gang crime, lengthy incarceration needs to be
an option.

But the behaviour of others, such as chronic property offenders, is a
sadly predictable manifestation of lives riddled with other types of
instability that may be remedied more cheaply and effectively than by
using the jails. We think B.C. can do better.

When the RCMP in B.C. began looking at different ways to deal with
prolific offending in 2004, we were inspired by what had happened in
Britain. Crime rates, at that point, had fallen in the United Kingdom
by more than 40 per cent in an eight-year span, based largely on
improved management of prolific offenders.

We put these ideas into play in several B.C. detachments. As reported,
property crime rates began to tumble.

However, by 2006 our commanders pointed out that it was
labour-intensive to stay on top of the most prolific individuals'
activity from a police-only perspective. We needed to build bridges to
other parts of government that dealt with the same individuals'
problematic behaviour.

In 2006 two B.C. delegations from the RCMP, government and academia
traveled to the U.K. to meet with officials and service providers
responsible for the crime reduction approach. The range of agencies
dealing with offenders we encountered suggested that we had only come
part of the way in our problem-solving exercise.

Criminal justice needed further integration, but ideas involving
systemic collaboration with (for example) income assistance, housing,
employment, mental health and addictions services needed to see the
light of day.

What's next?

The first step was to develop a made-in-B.C. approach to prolific
offending. But integrated criminal justice solutions have potential in
many areas. There is important work to be done on street disorder,
domestic violence, organized crime and crime prevention.

We also need to study, in collaboration with health research, the
relationship between drugs, crime and public health to develop the
most effective intervention strategies.

Some tough choices lie ahead. For instance, some might question
whether prolific criminals deserve the expenditure of public resources
to stabilize their lives. Can we afford this?

The real question is: How can we afford not to? Likewise, what if it
turns out that the best way to reduce re-offending is to reintegrate
this population outside crime hotspots -- that is, in nice
neighbourhoods?

These issues represent true tests of our willingness to build "the
best place on earth."

Another issue is privacy. We enjoy an important right in Canada
against government intrusion in our private lives, one of the basic
axioms of our democracy.

But sometimes -- for instance, when deciding whether treatment or
incarceration is more appropriate -- our current privacy laws act in
no one's interest.

Extreme voices claim that this is a simple issue. It is not: Making
communities safe involves a delicate balance of community and
individual rights.

Finally, even if people are safer, they may not feel safer. In the
U.K., lower crime rates were accompanied by increased public anxiety
about safety. Conversely, many approaches commonly believed to
increase safety (such as random patrolling) have little impact on crime.

It is critical that we work with the media, our partners and our
communities to promote understanding of actual problems, the logic of
strategic responses, and -- above all -- positive results.

Allan Castle is the coordinator of the RCMP's crime reduction
initiative in British Columbia.