OTTAWA INTENT ON MINIMUM SENTENCES DESPITE TWO REPORTS

Federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson is pressing ahead with plans to
create mandatory minimum prison terms for drug crimes in spite of two
studies prepared for his own department that say such laws don't work,
and are increasingly unpopular as crime-fighting measures in other
countries.

"Minimum sentences are not an effective sentencing tool: that is, they
constrain judicial discretion without offering any increased crime
prevention benefits. Nevertheless, mandatory sentences remain popular
with some Canadian politicians."

That's one conclusion of a 2005 report prepared for the Justice
Department -- Mandatory Sentences of Imprisonment in Common Law
Jurisdictions.

An earlier, 2002 report -- Mandatory Minimum Penalties: Their Effects
on Crime -- also
compiled for the department while the Liberals were in power offers a
similar view:

"Harsh mandatory minimum sentences (MMS) do not appear to influence
drug consumption or drug-related crime in any measurable way."

Despite such conclusions, the Conservatives unveiled legislation last
week to create mandatory minimum prison terms for drug possession,
production and trafficking.

The automatic minimum jail terms range from six months for growing and
selling a single marijuana plant to three years for producing any
quantity of coke or crystal meth in a home lab.

A clause in the bill would allow judges to exempt certain offenders
from prison if they pass a court-monitored drug treatment program.

The proposal has been widely criticized as counter-productive by
criminal lawyers, criminologists and at least one former Canadian
judge. Those criticisms appear to be backed up by the government's own
research.

The 2002 study -- by criminologist Thomas Gabor at the University of
Ottawa, and Nicole Crutcher at Carleton University -- was a
wide-ranging international survey on the impact of mandatory prison
terms for drug crimes, gun crimes, robbery and drunk driving.

It pointed out that mandatory punishment is a concept "as old as
civilization itself."

Yet in modern times, the study said, mandatory minimum sentences do
not appear to deter crime, for a variety of reasons:

- - They bar judges from using their discretion to sentence individuals.
As a result, prosecutors and police take up the discretionary role,
often choosing not to charge people with offences that would
automatically land them in jail, the study said.

- - They sometimes lower conviction rates, as juries refuse to convict
accused people facing automatic but seemingly unfair prison terms.

- - While they show success in deterring firearms or drunk driving
crimes, particularly among repeat offenders, they appear to have no
impact on drug crime.

Nicholson did not respond to a request for an interview on the subject
Tuesday.