POLITICIANS PLAY THE HOT AIR GAME ON CRIME

Instead Of The Hard Job Of Enacting Policy, They Blather Feel-Good
Nostrums And Hope To Hoodwink The People

When politicians are faced with responding to a crisis, they have two
options.

They can commit themselves to the uncertain and uneasy task of
translating the best research into policy, or they can ignore the
research and hoodwink the public into believing they're actually doing
something by offering certain and easy answers.

When it comes to crime, politicians routinely choose the latter
option. The federal Conservatives have made something of an art of
this strategy: Rather than going to all the trouble of developing
evidence-based policy, they've convinced just about everyone that
they're tough on crime simply by offering the simplest solution -- by
proposing that offenders be kept in jail longer.

This is a strategy that knows no party. Provincial NDP justice critic
Mike Farnworth, for example, routinely chastises politicians for
failing to swallow wholesale the Conservatives' single- and
simple-minded strategy.

And now we have B.C. Solicitor-General John Les entering the fray, and
proving that the provincial Liberals are not above offering a few easy
answers themselves. Witness Les's recent comments concerning the spate
of targeted gang shootings in the Lower Mainland.

In response to the killings of four convicted drug dealers and two
uninvolved bystanders in Surrey, Les remarked that "there are not
adequate provisions in the Criminal Code to deal with multiple murders."

Specifically, Les lamented that the Criminal Code treats single and
multiple murderers similarly, since a first-degree murder conviction
carries a 25-year sentence with likelihood of parole after 15 years
regardless of how many people are killed.

Now, the first thing to note here is that this is incorrect.

A first-degree murder conviction carries an automatic life sentence
with no eligibility of parole for 25 years. This is different from a
25-year sentence in that the "committal warrant" for murderers is
lifelong. Even those who are released -- and many are not released
after 25 years -- remain on parole for the rest of their lives.

But more important for our purposes is that the "faint hope" clause --
which allows offenders convicted of first degree murder to apply for a
reduction in parole eligibility after serving 15 years of their
sentences -- does not apply to those convicted of multiple murder.
This has been the case since 1997 -- it would therefore apply to those
responsible for the Surrey killings should they be caught -- and means
that single and multiple murderers are not treated similarly.

Nevertheless, Les's comments were echoed by Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts,
who advocated consecutive sentencing for multiple murderers in a
recent meeting with Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, Justice
Minister Rob Nicholson, Liberal leader Stephane Dion and NDP leader
Jack Layton. For his part, Day continued hawking the Conservative
strategy, repeating, without evidence, that it will have an "immediate
effect" on gang violence.

Now, strictly speaking, consecutive sentencing for multiple murders is
impossible since it would require the imposition of consecutive life
sentences, though in the past, people convicted of multiple capital
crimes were "executed" repeatedly -- subject to more than one form of
execution even if the first one managed to kill them.

What Les and Watts really want, though, is for parole ineligibility to
be increased in the case of multiple murderers. This, in fact, is
something that has been by proposed by Ontario Liberal MP Albina
Guarnieri, whose private member's bill calls for parole ineligibility
in such cases to be increased to a maximum of 50 years.

Guarnieri, who's persistent if nothing else, has been pushing for this
for more than a decade, and was originally motivated by the cases of
serial killers Paul Bernardo and Clifford Olson. Yet her proposed law
would have no effect on Bernardo or Olson, since the only way they
will ever leave prison is in a pine box.

Les, however, seems more concerned with deterrence, as he said "we
need to get a sense of deterrence in the Criminal Code." While it's
hard to believe that people who are undeterred at the prospect of
receiving a life sentence with no parole eligibility for 25 years will
somehow think twice if parole ineligibility is increased to 50 years,
it's worth taking a closer look at deterrence.

To begin with, research by Nobel laureate psychologist Daniel Kahneman
confirms that while prison sentences might act as a deterrent, their
deterrent "bite" decreases as sentences are lengthened. And this would
certainly seem to be the case when parole ineligibility is increased
to 50 years from 25.

Even more fundamentally, it has been recognized since at least the
18th century that punishment is only one factor in deterrence. Factors
of at least as great importance are the likelihood of apprehension and
the swiftness of punishment.

And it's evident that these latter factors are all but absent when it
comes to gangsters. One anecdotal example of this concerns Raymond
Huang, who was shot dead outside his $5-million Shaughnessy mansion
this week.

Since his death, police have reported that Huang was a major player in
the Big Circle Boys, an international crime syndicate involved in the
illegal drug trade among other activities. Yet police also reported
that Huang had spent the past 10 years in Canada, including the last
four living in his mansion.

How did an alleged drug kingpin manage to avoid capture for so many
years, especially when his activities were evidently known to police?
Damned if I know. But I do know that, while certain politicians
continue to solidify their tough-on-crime credentials by pushing for
harsher drug crime penalties, those penalties matter not a whit to
drug kingpins who continue to live the high life unmolested.

But we don't need to rely on anecdotes, since the research confirms
that the problem is not a lack of punishment for gangsters who get
caught -- it's that many gangsters are never apprehended. Indeed, the
only "justice" many gangsters face is at the hands of their fellow
gang members.

For example, Statistics Canada reported last year that 37 per cent of
unsolved homicides were committed against victims who were involved in
illegal activities, compared with just nine per cent of solved homicides.

In fact, homicides involving victims involved in crime were 3.5 times
less likely to be solved than homicides involving those who were
legally employed. And while 70 per cent of homicides are solved within
a week, homicides committed by a criminal associate of the victim take
an average of 61/2 months to solve, when police are fortunate enough
to find the culprits.

This suggests that two of the most important factors in deterrence --
likelihood of apprehension and swiftness of punishment -- don't have
much effect on gang violence. And this isn't terribly surprising given
that politicians are falling over each other to propose tougher
sentencing rather than engaging in an earnest effort to combat
organized crime.

Les is one of the worst offenders in this regard as he has resolutely
opposed the development of a regional police force, and even attacked
West Vancouver Chief Constable Kash Heed for having the temerity to
suggest that a regional force might help to stem gang violence.

But Les and his colleagues aren't the only ones to blame. For as long
as the public continues to allow politicians to get away with
prescribing feel-good nostrums, crime will continue to pay, and people
will continue to die.