VICTORIA IDEAL FOR DRUG COURT, SAYS TOP COP

But Vancouver Pilot Project Will Be Focus For Now, Says Province

Greater Victoria would probably be a good spot to try a specialized
drug or community court, said Victoria Police Chief Paul Battershill
Friday at a Victoria conference on alcohol and drug addictions.

"It's something we'd like to explore here in Victoria," said
Battershill at the Voices of Substance conference.

A pilot project is underway to set up a community court in
Vancouver's Downtown Eastside to cope with addicted offenders and
their criminal activities. It could open as early as Jan. 1, 2007.

Attorney-General Wally Oppal said he agrees with Battershill on a
community court for Victoria however Vancouver is a priority because
of its crime rate.

"But this something we're quite prepared to work with in (Victoria)
and if there's one person who could really make it work, it would be
Paul Battershill," said Oppal. "We'd be quite prepared to sit down
with the city and discuss that."

The Vancouver community court came from a recommendation of a
September 2005 report by the B.C. Justice Review task force. The
court's role is to deal with offenders who choose, with the benefit
of legal advice, to plead guilty.

The court's dedicated judge and staff have access to comprehensive
information about each offender and implement a full range of
punitive and rehabilitative responses. The main purpose is to solve
the problems of the offender and the community.

Mayor Alan Lowe and the Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce support
the establishment of a community court here, said Oppal. Despite a
number of other important priorities, Oppal said he's being "quite
aggressive" about having the community courts up and running.

"We would really make our cities more livable if we were to address
the problems of property crime ... the annoying type of crime where
you have your car broken into or you're harassed on the street," he said.

Community courts will be established based on the examination of a
business plan, the crime rate including the percentage of property
crime and the willingness of the Vancouver Island Health Authority to
participate, said Oppal.

"The issue in Vancouver is that over 85 per cent of the property
crime is committed by less than 10 per cent of the people . . . these
are people who are suffering from substance abuse, mental illness,
alcohol abuse."

Battershill said that a community court would be a nice melding of
enforcement and treatment options.

"An offender who was drug addicted and possibly doing a lot of
property crime would enter a drug court system voluntarily and then
be supervised by a judge, perhaps for a period of two years, while
they attempted to get clean and get treatment and that would mitigate
any sentence," Battershill said.

There's no question that the vast majority of property crimes are
drug related, he said. That doesn't mean people committing property
offences shouldn't spend time behind bars, he said.

"If somebody is repeatedly doing property offences, yeah, I'd like to
see them locked up for a little while so that we get a break," he
said, adding that simply locking people up doesn't address the
underlying issues of addiction.

"But if somebody's told you're going to go to jail for a year or you
can enter some sort of supervised program . . . then that may work
very well with certain people," he said.