HARPER TORIES BACK TOUGHER SENTENCING

RCMP Kin Want Minimums For Drug, Gun Crimes

EDMONTON -- When the families of four slain Mounties decided to fight
for changes to the justice system, they needed a friend in high
political places. They have one in Justice Minister Vic Toews.

The grieving families want mandatory minimum sentences for gun- and
drug-related crimes. James Roszko had a history of gun offences and
ran a marijuana grow-operation that was discovered the day before he
gunned down RCMP constables Peter Schiemann, Anthony Gordon, Brock
Myrol and Leo Johnston on March 3, 2005.

"Roszko got into this revolving door of the criminal justice system.
He knew how to use it," said Rev. Don Schiemann. "If we had all these
things in place, would March 3 have happened?"

Schiemann recognizes that "you can't hit the rewind button," but he
can't help but think of the "what ifs."

In the mid-1990s, Roszko was sentenced to five years for sexual
assault. His sentence was cut in half on appeal in 2000. If the
five-year sentence had been upheld, and Roszko had served the full
time, he would have been in prison the day he killed Schiemann's son
Peter and three others.

An increase in minimum sentencing is a priority for the new
Conservative federal government.

"We're committed to the enactment of mandatory minimum penalties for
gun crimes and enacting minimum prison sentences for serious drug
offences," Toews said in an interview shortly after he was sworn in
as justice minister.

The families also want minimums for the sexual assault of a minor and
serious assaults on police. Roszko's record included both.

Toews stopped short of those commitments, but didn't rule them out.

"We could very well have other discussions, but right now the focus
is on gun and serious drug crimes."

Twenty-nine offences currently carry minimum sentences, 20 of them
for firearms offences. Other mandatory minimums apply to crimes such
as murder and child prostitution.

The Liberals instituted many of the firearms-related minimums in
1995, but none have been introduced since.

Minimums for gun crimes now range from one to four years, which
Schiemann regards as "a joke." He wants criminals to receive five
years if they commit a crime with a gun, 10 if they fire it and 15 if
they shoot someone.

"We should have something that makes people sit up and notice before
they put the bullets in their gun. You have to send a strong, strong
message to the criminals."

Toews believes in mandatory minimum sentences.

"Certainly, they're a deterrent. It not only deters individuals, but
also segregates (in jail) those individuals who nevertheless go ahead
and use firearms."

But the deterrent value of mandatory minimums is debatable, say experts.

"What I find almost offensive is all these politicians saying we know
mandatory minimums deter, and we don't know that," said Sanjeev
Anand, a University of Alberta law professor. "We know the exact
opposite, that it's not what you're going to be sentenced to that
makes the difference, it's the chance of getting caught."

Criminals tend not to be forward-thinking enough to be deterred by
harsher sentences, said Willie deWit, a Calgary criminal lawyer and
past president of Alberta's criminal justice branch of the Canadian
Bar Association.

"Most defence counsel say, and many studies show, that most people
committing crimes, it's not something they thought about for a long
period of time," he said. "An opportunity arises and these things happen."

For most crimes in Canada, sentencing is up to judges. Mandatory
minimums limit judicial discretion.

"The danger is you can get a situation where a sentence that's a
mandatory minimum becomes harder than the circumstances or the
individual warrant in the situation," deWit said.

However, Schiemann said limiting discretion is a key benefit.

"I believe there is a bit of a crisis of credibility with our
judicial system, as distinct from our justice system," he said. "More
and more, the public is hearing through the news of some of the
outrageous and almost scandalous decisions in terms of sentencing
that judges will give for serious crimes."

The bar on sentencing is too easily lowered, Schiemann said. "Just
because a judge is a judge, it doesn't always mean he's going to make
the right decisions."

Courtrooms became a sore point for the families after an Alberta
Justice review of Roszko's prosecution history showed only 14
convictions among 44 charges. The report said Roszko never met the
criteria to be declared a dangerous offender.

"The list of his crimes just goes on and on. If they had made him a
dangerous offender, my son would be alive today," a sickened Doreen
Duffy, mother of

Const. Anthony Gordon, said at the time. "What were they waiting for?"

Toews said judges' interpretations have sometimes led to house arrest
for serious crimes. Conditional sentences would no longer be an
option for crimes with mandatory minimums.

"I see the issue of conditional sentences and mandatory minimum
prison sentences very much interrelated," Toews said. "What we need
to do is send a clear message to the courts that the sentences we
want imposed for these kind of offences -- serious gun and
drug-dealing offences -- require incarceration."

That would put more people in custody for longer periods. The
Correctional Service of Canada says housing a prisoner costs an
average of $85,000 a year.

"It will be tremendously costly," said Keith Spencer, a University of
Alberta criminologist.

He said higher incarceration rates provide the illusion of safety,
but it seems to be something Canadians want. "We're ready to spend
money on jails. It's a more popular approach."