REPEAT OFFENDER LAWS WORK

The federal government announced on Thursday that it will introduce
legislation next week to increase significantly the sentences of
criminals convicted of their third violent crime or serious sexual
assault.

Already criminal lawyers, academics and prisoners' rights advocates
have lined up to denounce the plan. They insist it breaches the
Charter and that such "three-strikes" laws elsewhere have proven
useless in lowering crime.

The government is confident -- as are we -- their plan can survive a
Charter challenge in the courts.

And there is plenty of evidence, despite critics' claims, that
"sentence enhancements," such as three-strikes, do indeed reduce
crime, in some cases substantially.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, with the backing of police officers'
unions and victims' rights organizations, explained his government
wants criminals convicted of their third serious crime to spend at
least seven years in prison, preferably longer.

When the House of Commons reconvenes after its Thanksgiving recess,
Vic Toews, the Minister of Justice, will introduce a bill that would
automatically deem third-time repeat criminals to be "dangerous
offenders" ineligible for parole for a minimum of seven years, unless
they can convince the sentencing judge there is no risk of their
reoffending. At present, it is up to Crown prosecutors to establish
that a convict is dangerous.

Once labelled a dangerous offender, inmates serve an indefinite
sentence, and may only be released once a judge is convinced they are
no longer a public threat.

Louise Botham, president of the Ontario Criminal Lawyers Association,
called this "fundamentally unfair" and confidently predicted the
courts would strike it down. But criminal sentencing has three
objectives: general deterrence of criminals as a whole, specific
deterrence of the criminal being sentenced and his rehabilitation. The
Conservatives' three-strikes proposal offends none of these
principles, nor does it interfere with judicial discretion. Judges
would remain free to accept an offender's evidence against being named
dangerous.

And even if this so-called "reverse onus" test might offend the
Charter, it ought to be justifiable under Section 1. Someone found
guilty for a third time of any of the 11 extremely serious crimes on
the Tories' list -- among them murder, armed robbery, aggravated
assault and rape -- would have had the full benefit of the Charter's
protection against wrongful detention on his two previous convictions.
Surely the right of society to protect itself should become paramount
after his third.

Ms. Botham and many others also insisted there was no evidence in
favour of these stiff sentences.

We're not sure where they are looking for proof.

California -- whose three-strikes law is the most famous -- saw a 27%
reduction in crime in the first nine years after it enacted its law in
1994, which translates into 815,000 fewer crimes, including as many as
1,000 fewer murders. According to the American National Bureau of
Economic Research, laws that "require courts to lengthen the sentence
of repeat offenders in cases of wilful homicide, forcible rape,
robbery, aggravated assault and burglary of a residence" led to a
noticeable reduction of serious crime, up to 20% in the first five to
seven years after passage.

Also, according to the American Legislative Exchange Council, the 10
states that increased their criminal sentences the most in the 1990s
saw their serious crime rates fall an average of 19%, while the 10
with no increases or only small ones saw an average increase of 9%.

The logic seems obvious.

We are constantly told that the vast majority of crimes are committed
by a small minority of especially violent offenders.

If this is so, then locking up more of these offenders, for longer,
will cut down on their chances to commit crime.

While it is true the academic literature on three-strikes is unclear
on such laws' deterrent effect, it is also quite clear that their
"incapacitation effect" is noticeable. Three-strike laws may or may
not deter other criminals from robbing, beating, killing or raping,
but they incapacitate those responsible for most crime (by keeping
them in prison longer), and that is where the crime reduction comes
from.

The chorus of complaints against this new Conservative law will rise
in the coming weeks.

But Canadians concerned about crime in their communities can feel free
to ignore it. Repeat offender laws work, and the federal government is
right to pursue one.