CATCHING THE CRIMINALS BEFORE THEY STEAL YOUR CAR

What if instead of waiting for people to commit crimes, you identified
and stopped them before they broke into your house or grabbed your
mom's purse?

That was the premise of a Tom Cruise flick of a few years ago called
Minority Report. Future police were able to identify people on the
brink of killing a spouse or committing some other crime -- don't ask
how -- and sweep in for a preventive arrest.

And it's also, minus the sci-fi, what the B.C. Progress Board is
recommending in its report on reducing crime in the province.

Instead of hiring more police and building more jails to house more
criminals, an approach that hasn't worked all that well so far, the
Progress Board says we should work harder at keeping people from
committing crimes.

It's a good idea, one of a succession of first-rate efforts from the
board since Premier Gordon Campbell set it up in 2001.

There's no fancy science or magic tests involved.

The report says we know what turns people into criminals. Or at least
we know about the people who commit 90 per cent of the crimes. There
are still the crimes of calculation, blind anger or -- based on my
brief stint as a court reporter -- the extraordinarily rare and scary
people who are just evil.

But mostly we can look out into our communities and know who will
commit crimes tomorrow, or in a few years. Which means we can stop
them, or at least a lot of them.

The report from the Progress Board, a hard-headed, business-dominated
group chaired by Victoria's David Black, recommends that approach.

The major cause of criminal activity -- no surprise -- is drug and
alcohol use, the report notes. People steal to pay for both. Both make
them stupid and unable to see the consequences of their crimes. Users
are often angrier, more violent. Suppliers, except for the Liquor
Distribution Branch, commit crimes to protect their businesses.

About four out of five federal penitentiary inmates are substance
abusers, the report found. Deal with that problem and crime plummets.

But, the report found, we aren't doing well. We talk about the
four-pillar approach -- prevention, harm reduction, treatment and
enforcement. But treatment isn't available across most of the province
and there's no help to keep people sober. The shortage of treatment
and support in the capital region has been clearly documented, but not
addressed.

Much more needs to be done, the report says. Not more reports or
studies -- "Most of all there needs to be some action."

It's not just drugs. The report identifies a second, equally
unsurprising, cause of crime. That guy shoplifting today was a
neglected or poorly parented four-year-old in 1995. Give kids some
help and a fair chance and they'll do OK, the report says.

But many kids haven't been given a chance. "Clearly, existing health
and social services that address childhood development issues are not
adequate at this time," the board reports. Little kids need help; they
don't get it. They stumble in school, have no caring adults around and
drift into disaster.

Then there are the crazy people, or, more politely, the mentally
ill.

Hospitalization is rare now. But there's not enough community support
either. So people with mental illness end up on the street, in
emergency wards and in jail.

The Progress Board identifies another potential crime group that
includes people from all of the first three categories. People living
"impoverished and chaotic lifestyles" are prone to crime, the report
notes.

These are incredibly difficult people. But the board's report says
making an effort to deal with their problems and "colossal unmet
needs" would pay off in reduced crime.

All these people have something in common besides a propensity for
crime. They aren't going to be deterred by more enforcement or tougher
penalties. A mentally ill addict with fetal alcohol disorder doesn't
calculate the odds of getting caught and punished. She leaps.

Which means that deterrence won't work, only prevention. We can hire
thousands more police officers to try to catch every criminal in the
act.

Or we can do what it takes to stop people from ever becoming
criminals.

Footnote: The report offers three options for dealing with the drug trade:

Legalize, or if that's not possible or practical, then spend a great
deal on a serious 10-year effort to wipe out the trade. Or, the report
suggests, launch the attack with legalization to follow. The board
makes no recommendation on which course the government should choose.
Legalization is still a tough sell, but a real enforcement effort
would cost billions that could be spent on health care.