FEAR TRIUMPHS OVER REASON IN JUSTICE BILLS

The two criminal justice bills recently introduced by Conservative
Justice Minister Vic Toews will, if passed, reduce the availability
of conditional sentences and require mandatory minimum jail sentences
for a number of offences.

These bills are a triumph of the politics of fear over policies of
reason and experience.

The political argument for these bills can be found in the preamble
to the second bill, which states as a premise that there is
increasing violence involving firearms in Canadian communities.

This political starting point is simply false. Statistics Canada
reports that between 1994 and 2004 there were decreases in all
categories of violent crime. The decreases were significant: The
number of assaults fell by 18.1 per cent, the number of robberies by
14 per cent, the number of sexual assaults by 32 per cent.

Conditional sentences, which usually involve offenders being placed
under strict house arrest conditions, were introduced as a sentencing
option in 1996.

Judges are only permitted to utilize a conditional sentence when they
conclude that the offender will not endanger the safety of the
community. If any of the conditions imposed by a judge are not
followed the offender can be sent to jail to serve the balance of his
or her sentence. While serving conditional sentences offenders are
expected to work to support themselves and their families.

Mandatory minimum jail sentences, on the other hand, have been shown
to be an abject failure where they have been tried. In the United
States, where they have been used extensively, their staunchest
supporters have become the companies who run private prisons and
prison guards' unions.

It is not hard to understand why: In the United States, where 13
states have introduced mandatory minimum sentencing laws, there are
more than 2.2 million people in jail. Despite having this number of
people in jail the murder rate in the U.S. is three times higher than
in Canada. The rate of serious assaults is more than twice as high as
in Canada.

The Conservatives are budgeting more than $250 million to pay for
additional spaces in federal prisons as a result of these
initiatives. This does not include the cost to the provinces, which
run jails for offenders serving sentences of less than two years. It
costs British Columbia $146 per day per offender for incarceration.
That's more than $53,000 per year per person.

The basic premise of mandatory minimum sentences is that judges are
incapable of imposing appropriate sentences tailored to the offender
and offence. In my experience as a lawyer this is simply not the case.

It is not possible to achieve justice with an inflexible, mechanical
approach. Where the government is dissatisfied with a particular
sentence it already has a remedy: An appeal to a higher court to
request that the sentence be increased.

We can only hope that the opposition parties will choose reason and
experience over the politics of fear and prevent the passage of this
ill-considered legislation.