SOME QUESTION IF A TOUGHER STANCE ON CRIME IS NEEDED

More police and tighter border controls are getting wide approval
from observers, but criminologists warn some of the Conservatives'
get-tough promises are little more than costly vote-grabbers that
won't make Canadians safer.

The Tories pledged to introduce mandatory minimum sentences for drug
and weapons offences and to end conditional sentences such as house
arrest for several serious crimes.

The proposals resonated well with an electorate rattled by a year of
unprecedented gun violence in Toronto punctuated by the shooting
death of an innocent teenage shopper on Boxing Day -- but statistics
tell a different story in some areas, experts said.

"Linking conditional sentences to increased crime is largely a
fallacy," said Doug King, chairman of the justice studies program at
Mount Royal College.

Critics of conditional sentences are correct in pointing out that
their use has exploded. In 1999, Statistics Canada recorded 7,627
conditional sentences; by 2003, their number had almost doubled to 12,881.

Meanwhile, crime in Canada -- including the homicide rate -- has been
trending downward, and even year-to-year upward spikes don't approach
historic peaks recorded in the 1980s.

"We saw all the parties -- even the NDP -- tell the public what they
wanted to hear about getting tough on crime," said Simon Fraser
University criminologist Neil Boyd.

Regardless of the platform's crime-fighting merits, the fact even the
left-leaning NDP has called for mandatory minimum sentences for gun
crimes has Tories confident they can implement their proposals
despite their minority in the House of Commons.

"We had many parties agreeing with what the Conservative party was
saying," said MP Vic Toews, a former Manitoba justice minister who
served as the Conservatives' justice critic in Opposition.

The Conservatives have also promised to abolish statutory release,
which entitles most offenders to serve the final third of their
sentence in the community with supervision.

Under the Tories' plan, the only way an offender could win early
release is through a successful application to the National Parole Board.

"We would favour a system that imposes a requirement that people
rehabilitate themselves to be eligible for parole," Toews said.

Although about 40 per cent of offenders on statutory release are sent
back to jail, the majority of those cases are for minor breaches of
their conditions. Only three per cent of the 5,439 offenders on
statutory release in 2003 -- roughly 163 people -- committed a
violent crime after leaving prison.

The proposal is an "overreaction" that will result in an expensive
swelling of the prison population with little effect on crime, Boyd said.

"That is a fundamental shift and I think it's exceedingly foolish," he said.

Another Conservative promise -- imposing mandatory adult sentences on
youths charged with violent or repeat offences -- may not withstand a
legal challenge, King said.

"There is potentially a Charter challenge there. The idea of a 'young
offender' is very much a creation of the criminal justice system," he said.

The Youth Criminal Justice Act already calls for adult sentences for
serious crimes, though they're not mandatory. The law allows for a
youth sentence in those cases, but only if the defence can prove an
adult sentence would not be appropriate.