POLITICIANS CAN'T RESIST BEING 'TOUGH ON CRIME'

Despite Falling Crime Rate, Liberals And Tories Have Both Embraced
Mandatory Minimums

"Canada was founded on the principles of peace, order and good
government. This is the birthright of all Canadians; yet Canadians
feel less safe today and rightly worry about the security of their
neighbourhoods and the country. There is no greater responsibility
for a government than to protect this right to safety and security."

Speech from the Throne, Oct. 16, 2007

Toronto's 2005 "year of the gun" - which saw a jump in gun-related
killings, including several high-profile incidents in which innocents
were shot - stirred outrage and prompted all levels of government to
stand shoulder-to-shoulder.

Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Liberal Ontario Premier
Dalton McGuinty and Toronto Mayor David Miller (a long-time member of
the NDP) shared a stage in late 2006, brought together by guns,
public fear, intense media coverage and a new crime bill.

"Between the three of us, we pretty much cover the political
spectrum," said Harper. "But today we are partisans for the same
cause; reclaiming safe streets and safe communities for all Canadians."

On the heels of the killings of 15-year-old Jane Creba while she
shopped on Yonge St. and, in early 2006, of Chantel Dunn by gunmen
apparently targeting her boyfriend, the minority government opened up
the Criminal Code to address - in the words of Harper - "decades of neglect."

The Tackling Violent Crime Act took effect May 1, after Liberal
Leader Stephane Dion directed the Liberal-dominated Senate not to
oppose it. Doing so would have sent voters back to the polls over a
law touted as tough on those who use guns in crimes - a political
risk he was unwilling to take.

Indeed, retributive laws often have broad appeal, with raw outrage
trumping facts. The Liberals had introduced their own tougher gun
laws and longer minimum sentences in 1996, two years after Georgina
(Vivi) Leimonis was shot dead in a botched robbery at the Just
Desserts cafe in Toronto.

But some fear the new law is stoking a law-and-order agenda that
targets more than just gun criminals with mandatory and increased
sentences, which research has shown do little or nothing to reduce crime.

"In terms of the three national parties, you don't have anybody who
is putting forward a reasonable punishment policy," says University
of Toronto criminologist Tony Doob. "The Conservatives just raised
them in a minimal way. So, we have a long tradition of thoughtless
policy, and across parties."

Despite repeated requests from the Star, neither Public Safety
Minister Stockwell Day nor Justice Minister Rob Nicholson agreed to
be interviewed on the subject of mandatory minimum sentences and the
government's approach on crime and punishment. Instead, staff sent
emails outlining the government's agenda, and in the case of Day,
said he was too busy.

On Thursday, when Statistics Canada reported that the national crime
rate had fallen to a 30-year low, Nicholson told Canadian Press: "We
are not governing by statistics. We are governing by what we promised
Canadians in the last election and what Canadians have told us."

The Star sought an interview with Liberal MP Irwin Cotler, a law
professor, who was also unavailable.

But two years ago in the House of Commons, Cotler lauded the previous
Liberal changes to the firearms laws while criticizing the Tories'
mandatory minimum sentences, which were then just a proposal.

"What we now know ... is that mandatory minimums also have adverse
and prejudicial fall-out for the criminal justice system. One might
call it the law of unintended consequences, which includes that they
increase the prison population, resulting in increased prison costs
to the taxpayer, and opportunity costs, as less funds are available
for law enforcement, community programs and crime prevention while
not bringing about the desired objective of safe streets and safe communities."

The federal government now wants to bring in mandatory sentences
aimed at mid- and high-level drug dealers, adding to the list of
crimes for which judges no longer have sentencing discretion. (See
accompanying fact box for details on the legislation, known as Bill C-26.)

But critics point out that low-level dealers who are often addicted
to the drugs they are peddling will also be caught by these measures.
The law would also automatically jail those caught growing even a
single marijuana plant.

Those convicted of dealing will face minimum sentences of one to two
years; previously there was no minimum. Jail sentences would be
mandatory for second-time offenders, including low-level dealers
caught twice within 10 years.

"The question, I guess, is whether we will be really willing to pay
for additional imprisonment costs," says Doob.

Canada is starting down a road well-travelled by the United States,
where it is becoming clear that mandatory sentences have been mostly
ineffective and financially disastrous.

Michigan, for example, has 50,000 inmates and a state prison bill of
$2 billion - an amount equal to Canada's entire prison spending.
Ironically, two minimum sentencing measures aimed at guns and drugs,
introduced in the '70s, led to more mandatory sentences for other
crimes and an astronomical increases in incarceration rates in that
state. The number of state prisons exploded from a handful to close to 50

However, the crime rate there did not decrease.

Tougher sentencing laws and policy typically have a genesis in
horrifying yet relatively rare crimes played large in the media.
Creba's Boxing Day death is a case in point.

"We call it drive-by policy making," says Eric Cadora of the
U.S.-based Justice Mapping Center, which uses incarceration cost maps
to urge governments to reduce jail costs and reinvest locally.
"Spectacular event gets blown up in media, and some politicians take
that opportunity to be tough on crime without necessarily
understanding the consequences or how policies relate to individuals."

One of the problems with mandatory minimums is that few criminals
consider how much time they might do.

"I can tell you that in 12 years of direct daily contact with
inmates, I never met one who indicated that he would not have
committed a crime had the potential sentence been longer," Irving
Kulik, the executive director of the Canadian Criminal Justice
Association, told the federal standing committee on justice and human
rights in late 2006.

John Muise, a former Toronto police officer who has worked
extensively with victims of crime and is with the Canadian Centre for
Abuse Awareness, thinks tougher, mandatory sentences do deter, but
should be reserved for the worst crimes.

"I think when you identify blanket laws for certain offences, such as
three felonies and you're gone, I think there's a significant
diminishing return if you identify the wrong guy," Muise said in an
interview. "There's absolutely no question that from a straight-up,
how much does this cost, it's going to cost you a fortune to lock up
the pizza thief."

Kulik, who worked for the Correctional Service of Canada for 35
years, also believes severe penalties for minor offenders are
counter-productive. He cited for the justice committee a 2002
Canadian study led by University of New Brunswick professor emeritus
Paul Gendreau. Gendreau and colleagues reviewed 111 other studies
that examined what happened to nearly a half-million offenders. They
determined tougher sentences may actually further induct inmates into
criminal life - as suggested by the prisons-as-schools-of-crime
theory - and spark an increase in recidivism.

"Arguably, increases in recidivism of even a modest amount are
fiscally irresponsible, especially given the high incarceration rates
currently in vogue in North America," the report stated.

Another perverse side effect, said Kulik: Removing judicial
discretion on sentences shifts discretion to police and Crown
attorneys, meaning more plea bargaining for those who may not be
guilty but are fearful of an automatic jail term and, conversely,
more not-guilty pleas from people who are guilty.

With the Conservatives in power in 1993, a government standing
committee on crime prevention reported that it was "convinced that
threats to the safety and security of Canadians will not be abated by
hiring more police officers and building more prisons.

"If locking up those who violate the law contributed to safer
societies, then the United States should be the safest country in the
world. In fact, the United States affords a glaring example of the
limited impact that criminal justice responses may have on crime."

Marc Maur, executive director of The Sentencing Project, a U.S. group
promoting reforms and alternatives to incarceration, says Canada is
nowhere near where things are in the States.

But, he continues, once you introduce tougher sentences, "it opens
everything up and suggests, 'Well, if we could do it for gun crimes,
we could do it for drug crimes and we could do it for other crimes.'"
The notion that lawmakers know better than judges, he says, "flies in
the face of what justice is all about."