MINIMUM SENTENCES ARE NOT THE ANSWER

Two anti-crime bills introduced by the Conservative government last
week included some good initiatives. But mandatory minimum sentencing
was not one of them.

Yet that is the measure likely to have the biggest impact on Canada's
justice system. The Conservatives estimate that between the mandatory
minimum (MM) sentencing law and a second bill designed to eliminate
conditional sentences such as community service or house arrest for a
number of crimes, as many as 4,000 people will be added to the
country's prison population.

Housing them would require new prisons, which could cost, opposition
critics claim, as much as $5 billion to build, and many millions a
year to operate.

That is a very large investment for the Canadian taxpayer to make in
MMs, that have not been shown to have any discernible effect on crime
rates, either here or outside the country. Normally, a record of
failure elsewhere will dissuade lawmakers from introducing a given
measure here. Bringing in mandatory minimums in the face of all
evidence suggests the Conservatives are acting on an ideological
basis, not a factual one.

MM sentencing was first introduced in a big way by the United States
in its war on drugs. Drug traffickers were subject to mandatory
minimums of five to 10 years, depending on the quantity and type of drug.

But according to research by Thomas Gabor of the University of Ottawa
and Nicole Crutcher of Carleton University, this sentencing provision
left gun-related crime in the United States "generally unaffected."

In part, explains Wade Riordan Raaflaub of the Parliamentary
Information and Research Service, this was because mandatory minimum
sentences were largely imposed on first-time, low-level drug dealers,
who are "easily replaced in the illicit market." Dealers higher up
the chain were able to trade information for lighter sentences.

Julian Roberts, a professor at Oxford University, also found in his
survey of mandatory minimum sentences in a number of common-law
countries that these sentences had "no discernible effect on crime rates."

It is not too late for the Conservatives to back away from mandatory
minimum sentences. Going ahead with this measure means less money
will be available for law enforcement and crime prevention, two areas
where last week's bills and budget do make real steps forward, but
could have made bigger ones.

To provide funding of $161 million over two years to allow the RCMP
to fill 1,000 vacancies, and to allow the Justice Department to hire
more prosecutors, is smart. Both groups have been handicapped for
years by inadequate staffing.

And effective crime prevention, especially among young people, could
use more than the extra $20 million over the two years the
Conservatives have budgeted for. It's better to head off crime before
it happens than to warehouse more people after they become criminals.