CHRONIC OFFENDERS FIND CITY'S A HAVEN

Mild weather, a laissez-faire attitude and drugs make Vancouver a
gift package for repeat, chronic and super-chronic offenders, says
the police officer in charge of managing them.

"The bow [on the package] is the courts," says Det. Const. Rowan
Pitt-Payne, head of the Vancouver's Chronic Offender Program (COP).
"We all know the system is broken."

On the desk in Pitt-Payne's modest cubicle is a list of 10 of the
city's most prolific property-crime offenders.

The Province can't name them because they are all targets of ongoing
surveillance. They're called "super-chronic" because they have at
least 12 charges to their names in the past 12 months. Pitt-Payne
came up with the new term because the "chronic offender" designation
(four or five charges over 12 months) would have resulted in a target
pool of about 3,000 criminals in the city of Vancouver. As it is now,
Pitt-Payne and other COP officers monitor more than 100.

The short sentences, while presumably a boon for the convicted, are a
bust for Pitt-Payne. He is trying to convince the courts that longer,
"purposeful" sentences would help the convicted to kick their drug
addictions and take steps toward a better life.

Crown spokesman Stan Lowe says prosecutors work with COP police to
inform the court of the offender's past criminality.

"We have to put the seriousness of the offence in its proper
perspective," Lowe says, noting that personal problems the chronic
offenders face make their cases difficult.

Pitt-Payne says the tendency for light sentences after repeat arrests
has lead super-chronics to believe "you're going to get caught, but
you're not going to do any time."

The average sentence in a B.C. Corrections facility is 55 days, says
spokesman Bruce Bannerman.

Corrections offers "core programs" both in and out of custody, but
inside, there are often waitlists, and short sentences don't give the
offender enough time to complete the work.

Attorney-General Wally Oppal has floated the idea of a community
court system that would include judicial penalties with mandatory
addiction counselling, treatment and concentrated social services,
but whether there are enough services to meet the need is debatable.
Nor has Oppal provided a firm timeline of implementation, only
committing to study the idea.

A report on rampant property crime and possible solutions released in
October 2005 by the B.C. Justice Review Task Force suggested radical
steps are needed. They include a basic recognition that chronic
offenders are in crisis and require concrete help if they are to turn
their lives around.

Dr. Bill MacEwan works with drug addicted and mentally ill patients
every day at St. Paul's Hospital and in outreach work on the Downtown
Eastside, where many of the super-chronics live when outside jail.

Asked if there were enough services to assist the mentally ill,
MacEwan says the answer is simple. "No. It's quite clear," he says.
"We definitely need more. It's how you pattern the service that
counts. Even if you had a Cadillac of services, most of these guys
are going to tell you to f--- off. The real challenge is to be able
to deliver these things in a meaningful way."

Last month, a Senate report called Out of the Shadows at Last noted
that existing services for the mentally ill reach only two-thirds of
Canadians who need them. Many of those people live on the streets as
a result or are confined in jail, the report said. It called on
Ottawa to invest $500 million in funding mental-illness support
services. To date, Ottawa has yet to respond with an investment.