OPPAL NOT IMPRESSED BY POLICE VIDEO OF ALLEGED ADDICT BEGGING TO BE JAILED

The attorney-general is not impressed with the Vancouver Police
Department's latest salvo in its campaign against the courts.

The department yesterday released a video of a man they say is a
chronic thief who walked into a police station seeking a lengthy jail
term with addiction treatment.

In the video, the man's face is concealed, and his voice is altered.
Police won't release his name. But he shared the force's view that
the courts let Vancouver's prolific thieves off easy.

"It's a joke," he responded, when asked on camera what he thought of
the court system.

"They are too lenient. The crimes that I've committed, I should have
gotten a lot more time."

Attorney-General Wally Oppal said the video needs to be taken "with a
grain of salt. Here's a guy with his face blurred out. We don't know
who he is. And he's saying the system is soft."

Police say the man in the video is a 32-year-old cocaine addict who's
been stealing since age 14, racking up 26 convictions.

Const. Tim Fanning said he walked into the Main Street police station
last week to turn himself in for a break-in.

No promises were made to him in return for his co-operation on the
video, said Acting Chief Doug LePard.

The man appeared to have remarkable control of his addiction,
regulating his drug use according to how much crime he wanted to
commit. He said he used cocaine three or four times a week.

"I really wasn't using that much," he said. "I was kind of on the
fence with whether to go back to full-time crime or not."

A year ago, when he was thieving full time, he'd spend $400 to $500 a
day on cocaine, he said.

Vancouver police are tracking 379 chronic thieves, one of whom has
150 convictions, LePard said.

LePard claimed that Vancouver's chronic-criminal problem is the worst
humankind has ever seen.

"Nowhere else in the world, and nowhere else in history has a
community had to face this kind of problem," LePard claimed.

The department's analysis of court records showed that a thief's
initial crimes usually bring a sentence of around 100 days, but after
the 30th to 35th offence, the sentences drop to 25 days, said Insp.
Rob Rothwell.

"The justice system is doing a lousy job of protecting the public," he said.

Oppal agreed Vancouver has a problem with chronic criminals, and said
judges must take some blame.

But while LePard asserted his force has no problem catching thieves
and getting them to court, Oppal said the solve rate on house
break-ins is only four per cent.

"I'm not sure it's productive to go around pointing fingers at
everybody else, when there's enough blame to go around," Oppal said.