DRUG TRADE, POVERTY AMONG CAUSES OF CRIME TO BE DEALT WITH, STUDY
SAYS

The Good News Is B.C.'S Crime Rate Is Falling, Team Finds

The drug trade, mental illness, poverty and childhood trauma are
equal contributors to crime in B.C., and must all be dealt with if
the crime rate is to fall further, says a new report by a team of
academics, police and members of the judicial community.

The report, which was prepared by Simon Fraser University
criminologists Robert Gordon and J. Bryan Kinney for the BC Progress
Board and released Thursday, says B.C.'s crime rate is dropping.
Between 1995 and 2005, it fell 14 per cent overall.

For it to fall faster, the report recommends, among other things,
confronting the drug trade head-on either by lobbying the federal
government to legalize drugs, devoting even more police resources to
cracking down on them, or a combination of the two.

By that it means pushing for the decriminalization of some drugs
after a "vigorous" period of enforcement.

Legalizing drugs, it says, could involve "limiting access to the
products in the same way that tobacco and alcohol access is limited,"
with taxes earned from their sale going directly to the health-care system.

Regardless, the report's authors say, something must be done "without
delay . . . if we seek to truly reduce the rates of crime and
victimization in the province."

They also say police services should be reorganized so that Greater
Vancouver, Greater Victoria and the Fraser Valley would each have its
own regional police force.

"The current situation," the report says, "is, to put it mildly,
bizarre," and allows for "a continuation of rivalries and tensions
between municipal police departments and the RCMP."

It also criticizes B.C.'s criminal justice system for failing to hold
offenders to account for breach of probation, for failing to
supervise criminals sentenced to community service, and for taking
too long to move criminal cases through the courts.

Consequently, says Gordon, there is a perception among people in the
judicial community, criminals and the general public that B.C. is
"softer" on crime than are other provinces.

"We don't know for sure whether the B.C. judiciary is softer on crime
than is the case in other jurisdictions," Gordon said Thursday in an
interview. "There is a perception that they are lenient, and that
perception may have as much of an impact [on crime here] as the facts."

By that, he means that regardless of the facts, if criminals believe
the B.C. judicial system is more lenient, they will operate here.

"It has the impact of encouraging people to engage in crime," Gordon
said. "The deterrent effect is reduced significantly, because
deterrents are based on perceptions."

What needs to be done now, Gordon added, is to determine if the
perception is true. If it is, the system needs tightening up, he
said. If it's not, "that needs to be broadcast. That needs to be
abundantly clear to everyone."

The report also recommended that the provincial government strengthen
services for children and aboriginal people -- who figure
disproportionately in B.C.'s crime statistics -- and expand
Vancouver's so-called "four pillars" approach to dealing with drug
addicts to the whole province.

The four pillars strategy encompasses prevention, enforcement,
treatment and harm reduction, as in the case of Vancouver's
safe-injection site in the Downtown Eastside. That site, the only one
in Canada, was in danger of being closed down by the federal
government earlier this year, but has been given a reprieve until the
end of 2007, pending further study.

Finally, it recommended that the B.C. government, in partnership with
Ottawa and municipal governments, create a Criminal Justice Task
Force or Criminal Justice Commission to address the core issues
facing the criminal justice system.

This, said Gordon, would help solve some of the problems that come
with having crime and its consequences dealt with by three separate
ministries: the offices of the solicitor-general and
attorney-general, and the Ministry of Children and Family Development.

B.C. CRIME PICTURE

The province leads in the number of drug offences.

- - There are 607 drug offences in B.C. for every 100,000 people -- the
highest rate in Canada.

- - Since 2001, B.C.'s violent crime rate has stabilized at just over
1,200 incidents for every 100,000 people.

- - B.C.'s violent crime rate is the third highest in Canada, after
Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

- - In 2005, Vancouver had an identical homicide rate to Seattle: 2.9
deaths per 100,000 people.

- - B.C.'s 2005 homicide rate was two deaths per 100,000 people,
slightly above the national rate, but below Manitoba (4.2 per
100,000) and Saskatchewan (4.3 per 100,000).

- - Although aboriginal people represent only three per cent of B.C.'s
population, they comprise 17 per cent of all homicide victims. They
are also charged in 20 per cent of homicides.

Source: BC Progress Board