SOLVING CRIME? TACKLE THE ROOT CAUSES FIRST

Nurturing the young, reducing poverty keeps people out of jail and
it's cheaper, too

Pay now or pay more later. That's how experts on criminal justice
describe competing visions to reduce crime.

We can identify the social problems that foster crime and spend money
trying to fix them. Or, we can spend the money later - and by most
accounts more of it - by jailing a growing number of criminals
struggling with social ills.

"We're using prisons as dumping grounds for all kinds of social
problems," says Liz Elliott, criminology professor at B.C.'s Simon
Fraser University. "Now, all these social problems are
criminalized."

There's consensus among experts on the front-end reforms needed for
safer communities:

a.. Reduce poverty and school dropout rates. b.. Invest in
comprehensive childhood development initiatives. c.. Make housing
affordable. d.. Increase access to health care and rehabilitative
programs. e.. Reduce incarceration rates, partly through alternatives
to jail, and direct savings to neighbourhoods with a high number of
offenders. The federal government is emphasizing a different approach,
one that puts more people behind bars for longer. Its new "tough on
crime" measures put it squarely in the pay-more-later camp, Elliott
and other experts say.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government has increased the
"mandatory minimum" sentences judges must impose for people convicted
of gun-related crimes. A proposed bill does the same for those
convicted of drug crimes, including mandatory jail time for anyone
caught with just one marijuana plant. And it plans to toughen laws
against young offenders.

Experts denounce the measures as American-style justice, where tougher
mandatory minimum sentences have led to astronomical prison costs and
the highest incarceration rate in the developed world, with little or
no reduction in crime.

The new laws resonate with Canadians looking for quick fixes. But few
consider their likely targets: The poor, the homeless, the poorly
educated, the mentally ill, the unemployed and those addicted to drugs
or alcohol.

Indeed, statistics seem to back Elliott's description of a society
that criminalizes its troubled citizens:

a.. More than 70 per cent of those who enter prisons have not
completed high school. b.. 70 per cent of offenders entering prisons
have unstable job histories. c.. Four of every five arrive with
serious substance abuse problems. d.. 12 per cent of men and 26 per
cent of women in prisons suffer serious mental health problems. e.. A
Toronto study of 300 homeless adults found 73 per cent of men had been
arrested and 49 per cent of them incarcerated at least once. Twelve
per cent of women had served time. f.. Two out of three in the youth
justice system have two or more diagnosed mental health disorders.
g.. Federal and provincial data obtained by the Star through freedom
of information requests indicates that GTA neighbourhoods with the
highest levels of incarceration are those with lower incomes, higher
unemployment, more single-family households and lower education.
Despite the statistics, talk of tackling the root causes of crime is
sometimes dismissed as being soft on criminals. Harper recently
denounced the criminal justice system as one that has "coddled
criminals" for decades.

The Tory measures come as the overall crime rate hits a 25-year low.
It indicates, experts say, that the decision to increase the country's
incarceration rate is strictly political, one that has more to do with
perceived electoral benefits than crime prevention.

Craig Jones, director of the John Howard Society, believes it smacks
of an "Old Testament, eye-for-an-eye ethic," which sees crime as the
moral failure of individuals rather than the collective responsibility
of societies that marginalize its less-advantaged citizens.

Rather than fund policies that improve equal opportunity - supposedly
a cherished Canadian value - the government will be locking up more of
those it has let fall through the cracks, Jones argues.

"From the standpoint of social justice, it's a bad day in Canada,"
says Jones, whose group serves offenders in and out of prisons.

Attacking root causes doesn't have to be expensive, especially if
savings from reduced incarceration are reinvested in troubled
neighbourhoods. With crime costing an estimated $70 billion annually,
$1.8 billion of it for prisons, cost-benefit analyses have repeatedly
shown such investments would save many more billions in the long run.

The debate, experts say, is not about being tough or soft on crime.
It's about what works. What doesn't is spending millions more locking
people up.

Greg Rogers, executive director of the John Howard Society of Toronto,
says increasing the prison population is especially wasteful when poor
access to rehabilitation programs in prisons and limited support
services for released offenders keep the revolving door of recidivism
spinning.

"We take a young man, we put him in jail and take away important
formative years, and then don't help him increase his skills. Then he
comes out and in one way or another becomes a ward of the state until
he dies. I don't know what that costs - somebody smarter than me can
figure that out - but it's got to be a big pile of money."

A more cost effective crime-reduction policy, experts say, would focus
on these general categories:

EARLY CHILDHOOD

Dr. Fraser Mustard, a leading child development expert based in
Toronto, tells of a study that compared a group of baby rats separated
from their mothers to those left to enjoy repeated maternal licking,
which is a natural part of rat rearing.

When presented with alcohol, those raised on comforting licks drank in
moderation. Those robbed of them became alcoholics. For Mustard,
founder of the non-profit Council for Early Child Development, the
experiment speaks volumes on how early experiences impact on the
neurological development of the brain. Put simply: Children who are
victims of abuse risk lifelong scars.

Mustard says studies have consistently shown that early childhood
development programs can cut future anti-social or criminal behaviour
by half. In June, Canada's chief public health officer, Dr. David
Butler-Jones, reported that every dollar invested in early years saves
$9 in future spending on health, welfare and justice systems.

But a 2006 study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development ranked Canada dead last among 14 industrialized countries
on investment in early childhood education and care. We spend 0.25 per
cent of GDP compared to Denmark's 2 per cent, Sweden's 1.7 per cent
and Norway's 1.5 per cent. Even the U.S., with almost 0.5 per cent,
spends nearly twice what Canada does.

Only 20 per cent of Canadian children 6 years old and under attend a
regulated child-care service (40 per cent of these are in Quebec).
This compares to 69 per cent in France and 60 per cent in the U.K.

Mustard describes progress in Ontario as "sluggish." But some programs
are making a difference in specific neighbourhoods.

Pathways to Education, founded seven years ago by the Regent Park
Community Health Centre, gives financial, academic, social and
counselling support to Regent Park students. It has reduced the
dropout rate from 56 per cent to 10 per cent and increased enrolment
in post-secondary education from 20 per cent to 80 per cent. An
analysis last year by the Boston Consulting Group found a benefit to
society of $12 - most of it in extra income taxes paid - for every
dollar spent on the program.

Another project helping a low-income neighbourhood is a "school
readiness" program in Rexdale.

Play time for the group of 3- and 4-year-olds at Braeburn Junior
School comes to an end with the signal of the classroom lights being
flashed on and off and teacher Mandeep Singh's gentle order: "Hands on
your head, everyone. Time to tidy up so we can go to circle."

The children break into song: "Tidy up, tidy up, everybody tidy
up."

Cleaning up, waiting for one's turn, going to the bathroom alone and
participating in activities while sitting in a circle are some of the
social skills and routines that later help sort students into
scholastic winners and losers.

"Children that are prepared for school do better throughout their
entire education," says program manager Leslie Westcott.

Shobha Adore, executive director of Braeburn Neighbourhood Place, the
community group that launched the program, says governments should
keep a simple truth in mind: "What we sow today, good or bad, we're
going to reap 10 years from now."

REDUCING POVERTY

A Toronto Star analysis of federal and provincial sentencing data
revealed last week that 10 postal areas in Toronto will each cost
taxpayers more than $12 million in incarceration costs by the time
their residents are released from provincial and federal jails. The
most expensive, M8V in Mimico, figures to cost taxpayers more than $25
million.

A map of the highest rates of incarceration indicate that offenders
often come from Toronto's most troubled and neglected neighbourhoods,
such as Kingston-Galloway, Jane-Finch and Jamestown.

In the U.S., the Justice Mapping Center has described incarceration as
an expensive and lazy way of responding to poverty. It persuaded
several state governments to release low-risk inmates and provide
alternatives to prison for those who violate minor release conditions.
The money saved from incarceration is given directly to the
communities the offenders come from.

That poverty fuels crime won't surprise many. Yet anti-poverty
advocates accuse Canadian governments of inexcusable inaction.

Canada's child poverty rate ranks us 19th among 26 developed
countries. Despite economic growth since the mid-90s, 13 per cent of
Canadian children - 872,000 people - live below the StatsCan
low-income cut-off. That's the same rate as in 1989, the year the
House of Commons unanimously vowed to eradicate child poverty by the
year 2000.

Frances Lankin, head of the United Way, says disadvantaged
communities, what Toronto has identified as "priority neighbourhoods,"
have faced years of finger pointing and program cuts.

"For a decade or more we saw cuts to the kinds of programs and
supports that would help people, and it clearly contributed to the
situation where you look and see the kind of incarceration rates that
are higher from priority neighbourhoods.

"After 2005, the summer of the gun, the vast majority of the shooting
deaths of young people came from those neighbourhoods. If our response
is simply to blame, to isolate and to say, `You're the problem and
you're bad people and we're going to cut you off and fence you off and
isolate you,' the problem is only going to get worse," she says.

IMMEDIATE FIXES

Canadian prisons are more crowded, and inmates more dangerous and more
wracked with mental illnesses and addictions. Yet the number getting
rehabilitation programs has dropped significantly. Many come out worse
off than when they went in.

Core rehab programs, such as anger management courses, only account
for about two per cent - $37 million - of Correctional Service of
Canada's budget.

Nor are offenders getting useful job skills while locked up, according
to a federally appointed panel that reviewed the prison system last
year. Poorly rehabilitated and poorly trained, many released offenders
end up homeless, too.

At least 40 per cent are convicted of a new offence within two years
of being released. Needed immediately are more resources for rehab and
job training in prison, and for housing on the outside.

With aboriginal Canadians, advocates say their scandalous
overrepresentation in prisons would drop significantly if courts
simply applied the law. (Aboriginals make up about 19 per cent of the
prison population, but only 3.8 per cent of Canada's.)

The Criminal Code states that reasonable alternatives to prison
"should be considered for all offenders, with particular attention to
the circumstances of aboriginal offenders."

In many cases, this should result in conditional sentences that place
native offenders in traditional forms of "restorative" justice,
including healing circles, rehabilitation programs and making amends
to victims, says Jonathan Rudin, of Aboriginal Legal Services of
Toronto. But it rarely happens.

Restorative justice programs are also making inroads in non-native
communities across the country. Often used in cases that involve minor
crimes, they can lead to victims and their offenders meeting with
mediators to consider restitutions and rehab programs as alternatives
to jail.

The process, mostly run by community groups, helps rebuild the severed
relationship between criminals and their neighbourhoods, says Elliott,
co-ordinator of the B.C.-based Centre for Restorative Justice. If
adopted nationally, it would significantly reduce the rate of
incarceration.

In virtually all the crime-prevention scenarios of experts in the
field, prison would be reduced to a place for the truly dangerous.

THINK LONG-TERM

There are noteworthy attempts to tackle the root causes of crime in
Canada, most struggling to find the funds to match their long-term
ambitions.

In some cases, such as Toronto's action plans for 13 "priority"
neighbourhoods, local agencies juggle short-term funding that abruptly
ends programs after barely a year.

In others, such as the Waterloo Region Community Safety and Crime
Prevention Council, local officials have toiled without a penny of
provincial or federal money.

"We have done this work often in isolation, if not opposition, to
other orders of government," says Waterloo's crime prevention
director, Christiane Sadeler, whose $450,000-a-year budget has come
solely from the regional government since 1995.

Sadeler's 36-member council meets once a month. It includes local
police, school boards, housing agencies, groups providing an array of
social services and community representatives.

They try to educate the public and governments about the social
factors fostering crime, co-ordinate strategies to tackle those causes
and make sure there aren't gaps in the services needed.

A current priority stems from the fact that more than half of crimes
in the region are linked to substance abuse. But waiting lists for
rehab programs are "ridiculously" long, Sadeler says.

Children suffering from mental health disorders anywhere in Ontario
are also largely out of luck, says Judy Finlay, Ontario's Chief
Advocate of the Office of Child and Family Service Advocacy from 1991
until last August. They're "congregating in the youth justice system"
because there's nowhere to send them for help.

A model similar to Waterloo's was recently adopted by Alberta. Irvin
Waller, founding director of the University of Ottawa's Institute for
the Prevention of Crime, calls it the "most progressive crime
reduction program in the country."

The province is investing $480 million in policing, early
intervention, crime prevention and treatment programs. In May, Premier
Ed Stelmach appointed a community safety secretariat, led by a "safety
czar," and staffed by officials from 10 ministries.

Waller, author of Less Law, More Order: The Truth About Reducing Crime,
gives Ontario a
far lower grade. Premier Dalton McGuinty gets credit for setting up the
ongoing "Roots
of youth violence" review panel. But overall, he has simply given more money
to police,
Waller says.

"We don't have a plan," he says, referring to a Canada-wide initiative
to effectively reduce crime. "Until we do, we won't succeed."

Contact the reporting team at crimepunish@thestar.ca.